by Leslie Cox; Monday; February 1, 2021

It is pruning time in the garden this month. Recommended you practice strict sanitation methods in your garden, especially when pruning your fruit trees, shrubs and berries, to avoid spreading any diseases.

Clean your pruning tool with a 10% bleach solution (1 part hydrogen peroxide to 9 parts water) when you finish with one plant and before you start on another.

If you are pruning a plant that has infected areas, disinfect your pruners after each cut. Or use 2 pruners…with a container or bottle of disinfectant at the ready. After making a cut, place pruners in the disinfectant and use second pruners to make the next cut. This way you, hopefully, will not spread the infection any further on the tree.

Where possible, remove infected branches by cutting 10 cm (4 inches) below the infected area and destroy the branch.

by Leslie Cox; Monday; January 25, 2021

Time to check through your supply of seed varieties you have on hand and check the date on the packets. Not all vegetable or flower species have the same seed life. For instance, bean and pea seeds are viable for 3 years; lettuce, kale, cucumber and eggplant are viable for 5 years.

I have made up a chart listing vegetable species and their viability seed life. Click here to go to the page on my website.

Finding information on seed viability life for flower and herb seeds is a little more difficult. In the meantime, until I can cobble together a useful seed chart for these species, you can utilize a general rule of thumb where annuals and perennials are concerned.

• Most annual seeds are viable for 1 – 3 years
• Most perennial seeds are viable for 2 – 4 years

Of course, these viability parameters only apply to seeds that have been stored properly. All bets are off if you have left your seeds in the unheated garage or greenhouse where moisture could get to them.

Okay. Now that you have sorted through your seeds and set aside the older ones, you could do a germination test to see if those older seeds are still viable. Before you throw them in the garbage. Seeds can be expensive, so no point in needless spending if those old pea seeds are still good.

Click here to go to my instruction sheet on how to do a germination test, if you have never done one before. The test is easy. You just need to invest a few days of wait time.

And if you live anywhere near our region on Vancouver Island, you will have days of wait time to invest in seed germination trials while the snow is still covering the garden.

by Leslie Cox; Monday; January 18, 2021

If there is no snow on the ground and the ground is not frozen, it is a great time to get a jump on those weeds.

With many of the bulbs, re-seeding annuals and herbaceous perennials still in winter hibernation, any weeds you may have in your garden will be sticking out like a sore thumb right now.

Regular walks around the garden will reward you not only with fresh signs of new growth appearing but will also expose those opportunistic pesky bad weeds who always like to gain the upper hand on the good plants by showing up early. Just make sure you are pulling an actual weed and not a self-seeded desirable perennial.

by Leslie Cox; Monday; January 11, 2021

Wash out your milk jugs, juice bottles and other suitable plastic containers and set them aside to use as cloches over your transplanted seedlings whenever frost is threatening.

by Leslie Cox; Monday; January 4, 2021

If you have hummingbirds overwintering in your garden or neighbourhood, be sure to keep the hummingbird feeders cleaned and filled. There is not much nectar flowing at this time of year for them.

Be sure to wash the feeder in warm soapy water and rinse thoroughly before re-filling. Even in winter, there is a possibility of mold forming in the tiny feeding tubes. Mold is harmful to the tiny birds. A pipe cleaner works well for this purpose and a stiff bottle brush works for scrubbing the bottle part of the feeder.

We have four feeders but only put two out at a time…one in the front and one in the back. The other two are the ‘standbys’, ready to go out when an outside one is empty…or if it has frozen solid overnight.

If you do not have a spare feeder on standby, a hair dryer works well in thawing a frozen feeder quickly. But be sure you place the feeder on a plate or in a container before you start thawing it. As the syrup warms up, it tends to leak out a bit.

It also helps to have some syrup made up and stored in a jar in the fridge for quick access. But only keep the refrigerated syrup for 3 – 4 days.