The Madman Is So Disorganized

Tired of shoveling snow? The madman is. This year it seems like we’re getting snow storms with ice on top and rain on top of that. A heavy mess we have to clean up. No wonder we are so disorganized.

Most gardeners we know are pretty well organized. Each month is filled with tasks to complete. Actually, we are usually quite organized, too.

We’d review our gardening journal. Look at seed catalogs. Plan out the garden. Decide on changes. Incorporate new varieties and new gardening ideas. Clean our tools. We’d order seeds. Then we’d head outside to prune. In the meantime, the madman would start seeds of early crops and hot peppers. All that took us through the winter and the dark days of the Persephone Period. Not this year, we are too disorganized.

Busy, But Disorganized

We’ve been busy, just not organized. As we zoom toward March, we realize we have to play some serious catch up. Luckily, the madman has been on top of his seed starting. He’s not the Hot Pepper King of Farmington for nothing! He started all the seeds that need extra time – that doesn’t sound disorganized, does it?.

Remember, here in Farmington we use May 15 as our last frost date. We plant some seeds 10 weeks before this date which is roughly Mar. 1. Most seed companies have good seed starting charts. We have always liked the chart from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. You’ll find it here.

The Madman Starts Early

After looking at the chart, you might wonder why we have already started seeds. Short answer: I’m gardening with a madman. But, actually, through experience we know that certain things need an early start (remember the gardening journal?) Besides, the madman has two greenhouses and an elaborate grow light system. And, we still have to play catch up.

I hate “to do” lists, but I think we need one because we are so disorganized lately, and I don’t want to forget anything. Here goes.

The Madman’s To Do List

1. Maintain tools.
2. Prune.
3. Make sure all seeds and gardening supplies are ordered and delivered or on the way.
4. Finish our heated negotiations about the flower beds.

Tool Maintenance

Sometimes we build a fire in the firepit to make this a more pleasant task. Thanks to all the snow, we can’t do that this year. Last year we moved our tool rack so we know what we have to do. We have made an initial inspection.

As usual, we’ll start at the kitchen table, then move to the étalier – hopefully we’ll have a sunny day so we can work under the skylights in relative warmth. Since we are creatures of habit, we haven’t changed much since we first wrote about tool maintenance. Check it out here. Perhaps the only thing we’ll change this time is no marshmallows.

Prune

The madman says you need sharp tools to prune. So, once the tools are ready to go, the madman is ready to go. Right now, the bases of the brambles and the blueberries are under snow so we’ll start with our trees. As the madman always says, “there’s no need to re-invent the wheel,” so here’s a link to the post we wrote on pruning.

We need to get out there pretty quick because spring is fast approaching. And with spring comes new growth. We want to prune while the plants are still dormant. You do to.

Seeds

Since we can’t prune at night, that will be a perfect time to check our seeds and gardening supplies. Although the madman heard someone talking about the lack of Black Beauty Eggplant seeds around here, we have not heard about any seed shortages this year. But there will be a lack of certain seeds in the madman’s house if we don’t get on the stick pretty soon.

We have fun going through our seed boxes to see where we actually stand and what we’ll need. For example, we found we are woefully short of Datura seeds. On the other hand, we found we’re probably good on Moonflower seeds for the next decade. I still can’t figure out why the madman hangs on to those empty seed packets. As you can guess it does take us a while to go through our seed boxes.

Supplies

And then there’s the supplies. How do we stand on pots, labels, seed starting mix, potting soil, fertilizer and insecticide? As usual, we hope we won’t need the insecticide, but we keep it on hand just in case; it will save a frantic trip out.

Right now, the outside stuff is a low priority, but eventually we’ll need our red plastic tomato mulch, trellis netting, berry nets (sorry catbirds!), plant ties, bamboo stakes and all that other stuff. If we don’t order these things now, we’ll forget we need them until we really, really need them – then it’s too late.

Negotiations

Of course, there are the negotiations on the flower beds. Remember, in our last post, the madman said he wants some space in those beds. Because we garden for fun, I’m offering him some options.

To start with, I offered a trade – space in the flower beds for space in the vegetable garden. At first, he was luke warm; “I already plant flowers in with the vegetables,” he said. So, I said the magic words, “They’ll attract more pollinators.” He warmed up to this.

Then I gave him a nice collection of cloth grow bags for his birthday. “We can put these anyplace,” I told him. He liked that idea. Not sure where I’ll find them this summer, but chances are pretty good they will be out of my garden. Hopefully they’ll be within hose reach.

I know we haven’t finished the negations yet and I know I will have to watch him like a hawk as planting time comes around. But that’s at least two months away so I guess we can relax and have a cup of hot cocoa now.

I’ll put it on.