At the Vernal Equinox, the Sun crosses the celestial equator on its way north along the ecliptic. For those of us without a sun dial or a farmer’s almanac, the previous sentence can be simply translated. Spring is here! March 20th marks the first day of spring for those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere. While some of us may still be covered in snow, spring marks the beginning of warmer temperatures, outdoor activities and spring cleaning. Spring cleaning is opportunity to clean up outdoors, wash windows, or mow your lawn for the first time. While those are important spring duties, I am interested in a different type of spring cleaning; cleaning up our diets.
Local Interest
For vegetable gardeners, it is time to think about cool season vegetables. Focus on garden planning, seed buying, and soil preparation, such as incorporating compost, if the soil is not too wet.
Do not let air temperatures trick you into planting too early. It is soil temperature that needs to determine when planting begins. Gardeners who plant too early may end up harvesting later than those who wait. And some can end up reseeding or replanting.
Ward Upham, Extension Educator with K-State, says one of the most neglected tools for vegetable gardeners is a soil thermometer. And he is correct. If vegetables are direct seeded or transplanted into cold soil, seed can rot and transplants can just sit there and not grow.
Fruit trees are or will soon bud out. This is an important time to begin applying fungicides to trees that had a fungal leaf disease last season.
Apples and crabapples are often infected by apple scab and cedar apple rust. Both cause spots to develop on leaves followed by leaf yellowing and dropping throughout the season.
Neither disease will kill a tree in one or even a few seasons, but can reduce yield. For this reason, and because fungicides work best when applied just before and during the infection period, this spring is the time to treat trees that were diseased last season.
Does rain often damage your high quality hay just before it’s ready to bale? There is a baling method that may help solve that problem.
Rain plays havoc with hay quality. Even when you study weather reports and do your best to cut when good drying weather is expected, just before your hay is ready to bale, it gets damaged by rain.
Pretty soon you are going to be ready to plant grass or alfalfa. You will hook up your seeder, fill it with seed, and start to plant. But first, let's check that seedbed.
The open winter left many of you with more hay left over than expected. Save some of that hay in case of drought, but any extra hay might provide extra value if it is used strategically.
Get extra value from carryover hay by using that hay in ways that will be valuable especially to you. Usually that means feeding hay instead of something else that would be more expensive. Another option, though, is to feed hay so you can make other resources more profitable.
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