Laura Young
ECB Publishing, Inc.
Tomorrow, March 2, is the birthday of Dr. Seuss, and kids around the world have been celebrating his famous books and artistry all week long. My celebration happened rather spontaneously last weekend when I was cooking up an omelet with lots of different green ingredients from the garden. As I folded a thick layer of fresh-picked green onions, parsley, oregano, spinach, kale, chard and chives up in the eggy disk, while some local sausage sizzled in another pan, it occurred to me, “Say! This is green eggs and ham!”
In the Dr. Seuss book with that title, a notoriously picky eater who finally tries green eggs and ham discovers that he actually likes them. The story conveys a simple truth: Don't make your mind up about something until you try it. Themes of open-mindedness come up fairly often in Dr. Seuss stories, as I recall. There's a need for discretion, though, after trying something – a difference between being picky and being choosy. Along these lines, Dr. Seuss also said this: “Your mind is a garden, your thoughts are seeds. You can grow flowers, or you can grow weeds.”
With all the springtime planting in the works this month, it's a helpful metaphor for cultivating beautiful and nourishing thoughts while nurturing seedlings in the soil.
What to Plant This Month: Indeed, the UF/IFAS list of seeds to plant in March is much longer than the list for transplants. I've already started a corn patch and have packets of squash seeds ready to put in this weekend. This month you can also put in seeds for beans, cantaloupes, carrots, cucumbers, okra, bunching onions, peanuts, English peas, Southern peas, radishes and watermelon. Transplants to try now include arugula, eggplant, kohlrabi, ginger, peppers, Swiss Chard, tomatillo, tomatoes, boniato, spinach and sweet potatoes. What a mouthwatering list to choose from! In the spirit of Seuss, consider trying something new, even something you think you might not like. You don't have to plant a lot of an experimental crop, just enough to see how it grows for you and whether you'll want to choose it again in the future.
What's Coming Along: Second and third plantings of lettuces, snow peas, arugula and collards are growing their way toward a future harvest, and the potatoes are emerging from their deep plantings. I now have eight large bins of potatoes filling much of the floor space in the newly erected greenhouse. I'm also excited to see new leaves sprouting out everywhere on various fruit trees, including the apple, fig, Meyer lemon (it survived after all!), limequat and grapefruit. There's new growth on the perennial oregano as well. Spring is happening!
What We're Eatin' in March: We continue to enjoy a huge variety of greens, and the arugula patch is especially generous right now. I'm still combining types of greens, by necessity actually. I find I've planted lots of little patches of many varieties and not really enough of any one thing to harvest a lot of a single type at once. This is okay, but I'm making some mental notes about a slightly different approach with the springtime crops.
What's Tempting Me: Last month I was longing for a rain barrel but not sure how one would work without any gutters to connect to. I woke up one morning realizing – duh! – all I needed to do was line up some buckets under the roofline and catch the rain that way. This turns out to be such a simple, no-cost solution, and the water is easy to transport to the greenhouse or potted plants one small bucket at a time. As you might expect, there's a Dr. Seuss quote to relate to this: "Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple." Happy spring gardening, everyone!