By Scott St. Clair | The Save Jersey Blog
Last Saturday, the temperature in beautiful downtown Belleville topped 80 degrees, and the Clifton Home Depot was chock full of people who looked as though they were making the mistake of planting by the thermometer rather than the calendar. One warm day does not a seasonal trend make, as this prediction for sub-freezing temps in parts of New Jersey over the next couple of days proves.
I did talk one man out of buying tomato starts for his garden. He argued that they were on such a good sale, but I asked him if buying them cheap now and again, but more expensively, later when he had to replace the originals killed by a mid-spring frost was that cost-effective.
He told me I had a point and moved on.
Having myself been, if you will, burned too many times in the past, I’ve finally gotten the message.
In the Pacific Northwest, where I gardened for decades, you don’t plant until Memorial Day weekend. In New Jersey, veggies and annuals have to wait until mid-May. While early planting is wishful thinking as if to force warmer weather much the same as hoping that washing your car will result in a needed rainfall, it doesn’t work that way.
I’m as antsy to plunge my hands in the dirt — mostly deck pots these days, but a few spots in and around the yard — and plant as anyone, but I restrain myself on the latter even as I indulge myself in the former since turning soil and prepping the ground is good to go anytime except the dead of winter.
Nothing better than the pungent aroma of composted steer manure being mixed into the earth to enrich it so that whatever grows will be big and lush. It is, however, a sign of some type of decadence that I am reduced to sneaking bags of it home behind my wife’s back like some kind of manure junkie because its fragrance doesn’t hold a similar allure for her.
And I can sort seeds, figure out what to plant and what not to plant and plan where things will go, so I have that, too. I think several hanging baskets of fuchsias would be delightful this year, don’t you?
But God do I want a mess of fresh green beans, a huge bouquet of sunflowers and a massive beefsteak tomato with olive oil, salt and mozzarella cheese for lunch.
Be still my gardener’s heart — your time will come.
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