Gardeners--Start Your Engines! I Mean SEEDLINGS.

Seems to cold and dark, to EARLY to be planning your garden?

Not at all--A gathering of West Ward gardeners met today at the home of Maurice Luker, who heads up the Natural Resources Committee, and the consensus is that seedlings for tomatoes and other garden vegetables can be started in window pots as early as the first week of February. The general rule of thumb is 12 weeks before planting, so the perfect time to plant seedlings can vary slightly, but there's no harm done in planting seeds a little early.

If you shop for seeds now, the seed packets will say on the back when the perfect time to plant is, and you can count 12 weeks back from that date. But for those who don't want to think that hard, just go ahead and plant indoors any time in February : )

A recommended book for our area is:
Pennsylvania Gardening Month by Month

Another book written by a gardener from Pennsylvania is:
Pennsylvania Gardener

Some web sites to get us started:

Great Web Site for Garden Supplies and Tools: Lee Valley

Another Site with Great Seedling Kits: Burpee

Great Site for Flowers, Bulbs and Vegetable Gardens: White Flower Farms

Strategies for individual gardens as well as community gardens were discussed, and the group decided to continue to meet on an informal basis to share their ideas and experience as the growing season begins. The next meeting of West Ward gardeners will be:

Saturday, Jan. 31st
10:00 a.m.
Location TBA (tentatively planned
for the Easton Boys & Girls Club)

The good news on community gardens in the area is that the City of Easton has agreed to let us plant community gardens in any of the 12 pocket parks in the West Ward, as long as we draw up a plan and present it to the City. Anyone who would like to see a map of our pocket parks can stop by the West Ward Neighborhood Partnership on 6th & Northampton and ask Gary, Sophia or Igho to look at the map. Neighbors are already drawing up plans for community gardens on 5th and Ferry, and on 10th and Pine Streets!

It was also exciting to learn that our area is one of the richest gardening areas in the nation--we have a multitude of resources in our area in terms of farms, greenhouses and gardening stores, as well as beautiful landscaped gardens. Once it gets warmer, the group is interested in meeting at some of these locations to discuss gardening options with specialists, and is also interested in engaging neighborhood youths on the projects through the Easton Boys & Girls Club. The group discussed bringing in guest speakers from successful community gardening programs as well, and even proposed getting speakers for the harvest season to discuss canning, freezing and roots cellars for the fall : )

So for now, start thinking about what you'd like to grow, order your seeds and if you're wanting to get a jump on Spring, save a weekend in February to plant your seedlings. Don't worry if you've never done it before, because you can always come to a gardening meeting down the road to get tips from experienced gardeners.

Please feel free to post your questions or advice on gardening to the comments section of this post : )

This is exciting--bring on Spring!