February 2025 – March 2025 – Pest Control – Spring Lawn Care
It is February and in northern New Jersey, our gardens slumber underneath snow and ice. But this is the time to get an early start on our flowers and vegetables! Follow along with us as we prepare our 2025 gardens!
Organization
Time to dig up (sorry!) all my gardening equipment and supplies. From my garden shed, I gathered my small pots and some “winter sown” bottles that I saved from last year. I also took my saved seed packets from the refrigerator. I created a small work area using some lawn furniture stored in the basement and cleaned my grow light shelving to prepare for my seedlings. Now that all my materials are in one place, I am ready to sow seeds.
Lets Start Some Herbs and Flowers!
It’s a little early (February 11) to start vegetables indoors, but it’s a good time to replenish my fresh dill and basil. I froze my basil and dill from last year, and my supply is getting short.
A good start to an herb garden is to buy an herb variety kit.
Winter Sowing – start your plants outside in NJ
I started mammoth sunflower seeds outside in bottles. The bottles have small holes poked in them. They are from the winter sowing method. I started them early outside, in this case outside in the snow and cold of winter.
Winter sowing, or overwintering outdoors, starts the season early and allows the seeds to germinate as soon as the weather improves.
Winter sowing involves planting seeds in containers and leaving them outdoors to germinate as the temperatures increase over the winter. This process encourages the seeds to germinate naturally, which leads to stronger, healthier, more resilient plants. The plants then adapt to the local climate throughout the winter, as well as to any fluctuations in temperature, resulting in hardy plants and flowers. This method is also very simple to execute, which is also a big plus for your garden. You can just set your containers outdoors to do their thing and the nature will take care of the rest.
March 2025 Garden Activities
We had over an inch of rain last night and our daffodils and flower bulbs are starting to peek out in the garden. We will be monitoring our asparagus garden for sprouts. Hopefully the weather will hold out so we can start raking thatch from our lawn and weed the strawberry patch.
Our indoor herb garden is growing. Basil, Cilantro, dill and oregano are growing slowly but soon we will be enjoying fresh herbs.
I have been adding to my winter-sown garden as I get new bottles form the recycling bin I have plenty of sunflower seeds to sow. Sunflowers attract pollinators, look great and the seeds are delicious!
I like to start my garden seeds indoors and then move them outside once the weather warms up. I save my nursery and seed starter trays from the previous year. Then I put them together to create grow trays to get my seedlings started.
I am planning to start marigold seeds harvested from last year’s flowers in these trays.
I set up another tray for peat pellets which I will use to plant Early Girl Tomatoes
March 10, 2025 – Outdoor Garden Cleanup!
With the mild weather in northern New Jersey our attention is now focused on cleaning up our flower and vegetable gardens.
My Garden Tools
- Leaf Rake – Good for raking leaves, but also good for lawn thatch and grooming the garden soil.
- Garden Fork – A garden fork is essential for turning the garden soil and for transplanting patches of grass sod.
- Roto- Tiller -The roto-tiller is essential for turning soil in medium to large garden plots.
- Garden Spade– for digging and planting shrubbery
- Pick Ax – needed for digging in north Jerseys hard rocky, clay soil
- Hedge Shears – trimming shrubery
- Pruning Shears – needed for roses and other woody plants (azaleas etc.)
- Garden Tool Set – small hand trowel, hand rake, etc. for detail work, seeding and planting
rt23.com
Breaking large gardening tasks into smaller steps is the key to success!
Our first goal is to rake out our asparagus garden in anticipation of fresh asparagus spears. This garden is full of leaves and dead weeds and a good cleaning to remove debris with a metal rake as well as a plastic leaf rake will set the stage for the appearance of our asparagus!
Next, I am cleaning up my “early garden” where I will plant radishes, carrots and lettuce, cold weather plants and long season carrots.
March 18, 2025
After tilling my early garden, I raked in some manure, gave it another quick till and started planting my cold weather crops. I planted a row each of carrots, radishes, lettuce and spinach.
Pest Control Starts Early
Rabbits and groundhogs in the neighborhood are especially fond of the gardens in northern NJ. The lush crops, vibrant flowers, and juicy produce may look delicious to them, but they can wreak havoc on your garden. The best way to handle this problem is to start conditioning the behavior of the animals. Sprinkling cayenne pepper around the edges of your garden will repel them, but it will take time and effort. Continue this treatment throughout the season particularly after rain washs the pepper away.
Spring Lawn Care
With the ground clear of snow, I’m doing some early spring lawn maintenance.
It will be much better to have a thick, healthy lawn as soon as possible in case we have a dry spell or other poor growing conditions.
If you want to have a good-looking lawn, it requires some work.
My first task is to rake the brown thatch patches. This will remove them and allow healthy new grass to thrive.
Next, I’ll spread the pelletized lime. I could use pulverized lime, but it is too messy with white powder going everywhere, especially on a windy March day.
I’ll wait a day or two until rain is forecast, then I’ll add the lime so that it dissolves into the soil.
Gardening #GardeningTips