In this issue:
- March in the Garden
- Nifty Seeds for Spring
- Gardenerd Tip of the Month: Stinging Nettle Soup
- Gardenerd Product of the Month: Gardening for Geeks 2020 & TomatoMania!
March in the Garden
And boom! It’s March. February went by in a blur, with election campaigning and Covid-19 (and our book launch for Gardening for Geeks) stealing most of the focus from gardening. In the midst of all that, it’s time to plant that garden. In cold places, it’s time to start those seeds and plant cool-season crops. In mild-winter places, it’s time to plant warm and hot season crops.
In our Test Garden, we’re harvesting kale, lettuces, cabbage, kohlrabi, Romanesco, turnips, parsnip and Swiss chard. We’re watching mustard greens and arugula bolt to seed. Flowers are in bloom: calendula, sweet peas, California poppies, nasturtiums, borage, and wisteria. Fruit trees are leafing out and citrus is starting to flower again. We’re pulling spent crops and prepping beds for warm-season planting. Winter is our spring!
We’ve been busy running the Gardenerd Education Series at TomatoMania 2020. See details below for upcoming classes and tomato seedling sales at a TomatoMania in your neck of the woods. Stay safe out there and wash your hands!
Happy gardening,
Christy
2. Nifty Seeds for Spring
We’re all about trying new things here at Gardenerd, especially when it comes to seeds. While we are purists—we stick to heirloom and open pollinated seeds—there are still so many to try that are “new” to us each year. Here are a few new favorites for 2020:
Row 7 Seeds – chef and author, Dan Barber’s collaboration to bring interesting, great tasting varieties with less food waste to market. We received Badger Flame Beets and Trial Snow Pea Mix as gifts from Dan’s cousin (turns out a friend of ours is related to him). We’ll be trying these out in fall, but cool-season gardeners can plant these now.
MIgardener – another gift we received (perks of being a well-known blogger) includes seeds for Spaghetti squash, Little Potato Cucumber, and Sweet Meat Winter Squash. We’re addicted to growing winter squash around here, so these came just in time to support our habit.
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds – We can’t mention favorite seeds without a nod to Baker Creek. They bring new meaning to the word “new”. This year, we’re trying their Genovese Red Freddy. We grow 8 different varieties of basil each year. Maybe this will become a regular in our garden.
Biodiversity is the key to a sustainable garden, so try a few new seeds each year to keep the garden interesting and fresh.
3. Gardenerd Tip of the Month – Stinging Nettle Soup
Stinging nettles are volunteering all over the place right now. Make good use of them with this delicious, nutrient-packed stinging nettle soup. Learn how to make it here:
4. Gardenerd Product of the Month – Gardening for Geeks (and TomatoMania)
First: Gardening for Geeks is back. This updated version includes 6 new plant profiles, and updated resources and terminology. Some distributors still show the book as back-ordered, but we’re working with the publisher to resolve the issue. Stay tuned and…
Next: TomatoMania is underway! Gardenerd is hosting the Gardenerd Education Series at TomatoMania 2020 events. Christy will be speaking and signing books at Tapia Brothers, Roger’s Gardens, The Water Conservation Garden (San Diego), Otto & Sons (Fillmore, CA), Descanso Gardens, Seaside Gardens (Carpinteria, CA), and Cornerstone Sonoma (up north).
Find the schedule for all the awesome speakers including Scott Dagre, co-founder of TomatoMania, Brad Gates of Wild Boar Farms, David King of the Learning Garden, Andrea Crawford of Kenter Canyon Farms and Roan Mills, Yvonne Savio of GardeningInLA in this Gardenerd Blog post.
Stay tuned for more tips and tidbits from Gardenerd.com. Happy spring gardening!
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