Timely Gardening Tips for where you live

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— Connie Dam-Byl, William Dam Seeds Ltd., Dundas, Ontario.

Southern Interior
Winter can be a tough time for gardeners. Planning for next season’s garden brings some satisfaction, but it lacks the thrill of watching those first leaves poke through the soil. So when the weather won’t allow you to garden outdoors, try growing sprouts indoors. You can cure your gardener’s blues, and have delicious and nutritious additions to your winter salads and sandwiches.

Besides the seeds, the only thing you need to get started is a container in which to sprout them. Both are available from seed catalogs and the Internet. Broccoli sprouts are an excellent first choice. They are crisp, delicious and packed with 50 times the sulfuraphane — a cancer-fighting antioxidant — of mature broccoli. In just three to five days, you can harvest a whole “crop.” Mung bean sprouts are great for Chinese cuisine, and curled cress and watercress make tangy additions to salads, too.

— Lori Hardee and Karen Park Jennings, Park Seed Co., Greenwood, S.C.

Gulf Coast
Still shopping for holiday gifts? A good stainless steel spading fork might be appreciated. Plants are nice, too, and seed packets make great stocking stuffers. Regional gardening books are wonderful gifts that will receive frequent use, as well. Check the catalogs for new varieties — try spicy ‘Red Rubin’ basil, dwarf-and-tinged-with-burgundy ‘Little Lucy’ okra and taste-trial winner ‘Marcellino’ cherry tomato. If you are looking for a big, delicious tomato, then ‘Fabulous’ deserves a trial. Dark-green ‘Festina’ and golden ‘Soleil’ bush beans, the “new kids on the block,” are both delicious and nutritious. Meanwhile, keep those cool-season crops like lettuce and broccoli protected from winter frosts. In mid-January, start tomato seeds for transplants to set out in early March, and set out short-day onion plants like ‘1015,’ ‘Grano,’ ‘Burgundy’ or ‘Texas Supersweet.’

— Bill Adams, Burton, Texas.

North Central & Rockies
Increasingly, we are discovering the inherent beauty and amazing utility of our native grasses. Taller grasses can be used as borders along walkways, as dividers and backgrounds, or as accents in flower gardens. Wild, sod-forming grasses are increasingly valuable as low-maintenance, drought-tolerant substitutes for the traditional lawn. Laying a base with the proper grass is the easiest and least expensive method we have found to control weeds. If wildflowers are part of your plan, research their germination and planting needs now. Many species need to be cold-treated before they will germinate. This is easy to do in your refrigerator, but you need to order these seeds early to allow for time.

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