Garden Thoughts

This is for all the vegetable gardeners out there.   I am a bit reluctant to say anything about the coming garden season for fear I will encourage what already looks like a late spring.  For the winter lovers, a few more days of enjoying snow, ice, and temps around zero seems to be in the offing.

This is dangerous to mention I know—but remember 2012, just two years ago?  The temperature in mid-March soared into the mid-eighties and I planted radishes, carrots, lettuce—set out cabbage plants—and even planted some early potatoes.  That’s right.  Mid-March.  This year we’ll be lucky if we can see the ground by mid-March, and who knows when the soil will warm enough for planting.

Oh, I must also say, that as the gardening season in 2012 went on, the early start really didn't help much—in fact probably cut into my vegetable yields.  That was the year of almost no cherries and limited apple yield for the blossoms quickly appeared and froze during a cold April.

It’s a good time to order seeds and think spring as you study the pages of beautiful vegetables and avoid looking out the window.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS:  Keep the faith.  There will be a gardening season.  Patience is a wonderful virtue this time of year.

ANNOUNCEMENT NUMBER 1:  Tune in Wisconsin Public TV on Tuesday, March 4, 7:00 p.m. for a showing of A FARM WINTER WITH JERRY APPS.

ANNOUNCEMENT NUMBER 2: No more blogs until the end of March.  I’m off to a writing retreat where there is limited Internet connection.  My email will continue to work for those who want to keep in touch. jwapps@tds.net

COMING EVENTS:

March 5-March 25, Writing retreat, Indian Shores, Florida.

April 5, 7:30 p.m. Stoughton Opera House, Stoughton.  WPT Farm Story, discussion and book signing.

April 7, 7:00 p.m., Kiel Library.  Garden Wisdom presentation and book signing.

April 8, 6:30 p.m. Heritage Hill Historic Center, Green Bay. Stories from the Land.  Book signing to follow presentation.

April 10, 6:30 p.m. Sun Prairie Library, Limping Through Life.

Purchase Jerry’s DVDS and his Books from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose, Wisconsin (a fund raiser for them):

The library now has available both of Jerry’s DVDs, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps and Jerry Apps a Farm Story.

Also available are several of Jerry’s book including The Quiet Season (on which the DVD A Farm Winter is based), as well as Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm, which are related to the DVD Jerry Apps a Farm Story.

Contact the library for prices and special package deals.

Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division St.
Wild Rose, WI  54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org
www.wildroselibrary.org
920-622-3835