Recently a massive Snow storm hit the East Coast, In my neck of the woods we had over 36 inches of the white fluffy stuff. Lets just say that is a lot of snow to dig out of. One of the  big lesson learned was to seek and listen to sage advice from others that have done this before- I learned the hard way (digging out a long path to my Chicken Coop)  That is a picture looking back at the house after digging the pathway to the chicken coop. Had I listened to “Grandma Anne” I would have “put the coop close to the house you never know how far it is until you have to get to it through some bad stuff” I put it 150 steps away so that I could get some exorcise. Doing that pushing 50 years old in snow up to my thigh was not fun, knowing I had to do it 2-3 times a day until this all got melted well that was enough to make me dig a path. Learned that I have to have a better way to feed and water the chickens – because when the snow is over their heads – they stay in the coop. Well that is for another blog post.

How does all this relate to Gardening? Well with the historic snow, it is not the time most people think of what is going into the garden, but it is. Last Saturday my local garden club had their annual seed exchange on this past Saturday, And we had a great turn out for our small little garden club. For those of you with access to a seed exchange I highly recommend going. You get to meet other gardeners, you get free seeds (I got 23 packets of seeds!), you share your surplus seeds, you usually get to find out how those particular seed grow in your local area, you get to ask other knowledgeable gardeners about how to best care for that particular variety of plant. Lots of great information from local knowledgeable sources. Cant get much better than that. Now I only have to buy a few of the seeds that I had planned. AWESOME!

I got home from the seed exchange and eagerly went through the bounty we got from the seed exchange (it was at the local library so daughter got some books she eagerly started) I noticed that they had on the back of one of the brands of seed package when to start the plant indoors date. I was like thank God – no figuring it out and guessing like last year – I started too many tomatoes too early and the cucumbers too late. So I went to Dave’s Garden and got my zone (7a) and the dates. I then put them into Excel being the geek I am added a formula to get plant indoors dates and the weeks before and after for Spring and fall planting.

So know I know I should be ready to plant inside. I start in my greenhouse but my son starts his on the floor next to the sliding glass door facing south east at his house anything that is supposed to be started 9-10 weeks before the last average frost and next week anything before the last chance of frost! Spring is starting already!

Here is a generic table of what to start and when from a wonderful book I need to do a review of called Mini Farming Self Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre by Brett Markham  SO now I know what we need to get into seed starters now then when to transplant them! Information is power and MiniRoots is a great place to get and share information about your Garden.

See you around the garden!