It says so right there on the 2018 calendar - March 20 FIRST DAY OF SPRING. We haven't had a winter yet so the next several weeks will be very interesting.
Hold on, I am going to say it. Even though many people may be happy they didn't have to shovel much snow or worry about driving on icy, slippery roads this past winter, I'm hoping for a rainy, drizzling, cat pouring deluge, torrent and outpouring of moisture - just short of a flood this spring season.
In the meantime, Happy Spring!
It's time good gardeners - gather your materials for warm season indoor seeding. Not to worry if you're just not able to start seeds indoors this year - there will be plenty of transplants to choose from at your favorite garden center. They are already stocked with cool season vegetable bulbs (onions), tubers/roots (horseradish, rhubarb) and many ornamental blooming bulbs like dahlias, gladiolas and begonias.
Right now is the time to seed the majority of plants and vegetables that prefer to grow in warm temperatures after the final spring frost-which is anyone's guess. I use May 20 or the end of May. Nights below fifty-five degrees are also risky for warm loving transplants, so keep all these variables in mind when you start seeds indoors.
Simply read the seed packet for weeks to grow to transplant size based on the final freeze date plus refer to my planting and seeding chart below. Most tomatoes are ready for hardening off outside before going in the ground after six or eight weeks. If left to grow longer indoors they may get leggy in growth habit which makes them less easy to plant.
LINK to annual ornamental seeding/planting chart.
LINK to herb and cool season seeding/planting chart.
Here's the warm season vegetable seeding/planting chart. Please pardon the spacing errors, I just updated to a newer version of Word and the document went squirrelly when converted to a pdf, guess I need to go back to Microsoft school for help.
Today is the first of March and it's close to sixty degrees (again) here in Denver. In the first two months of 2018 we had twelve days in the sixties, four topped at fifty-nine degrees. My family in Montana would love to have these temperatures. I'd love to have their high snowfall levels...yep, the grass is always greener. Not our grass, it needs some of that moisture from up north!
Looking ahead on the weather models, it looks like we may be in for more of the same the next three months. Below are the temperature and moisture outlook maps from NOAA. Looks like it's going to be more like a lamb this spring in the central Rockies, hope not.
Internet photos from NOAA
