Rethink your gardening plans with early sprouting

CATHY WURZER: Were you shocked to see a little pop of color out in the garden this week? Even though it's only the first week of March, gardeners across the state are seeing plants of all varieties sprouting. It looks like this weird winter has confused the flowers too. And who better to explain this odd gardening season than our resident Minnesota master gardener Meg Cowden. Meg is the author of the gardening book Plant Grow Harvest Repeat and she is on the line. Hey, welcome back.

MEG COWDEN: Hi, Cathy. So great to be back, thanks for having me.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, gosh, it's good to hear your voice. The last time you were here we were heading into winter and you and I were talking about the importance of snow cover and the winter season for gardening. And we talked about tossing stuff like grass seeds and some native flower seeds on top of the snow.

MEG COWDEN: I remember.

CATHY WURZER: And so folks like me ran out all excited. And we have no snow cover. So what potential gardening issues might be on the horizon, my friend?

MEG COWDEN: I tend to be a glass half full kind of person, so I'm trying to look at this as opportunities for us to pay close attention and to try and root down amid what is a very anxious and unsettling climate that we're in the middle of. I think gardening allows us to do this. I did, Cathy, throw seeds out in the hopes of getting snow. And then what we got instead was that big rainstorm right before the holidays.

And I was like, oh, are they going to wash away? Like I don't know, I'm going to find out. So you have to have a little bit of faith. But I think OK and yes, I'm-- go ahead I'm sure you've got lot of questions.

CATHY WURZER: I can follow you on that. I can follow you on that. OK. All right. Have faith. But OK, I'm a glass-- if you're a glass half full girl, I'm a glass half empty, I'm just a trained cynic. So I'm worried about-- I mean, fruit tree buds are swelling out there. I mean, that's like two months early. Yikes.

MEG COWDEN: Yup. Yup. We had swelling on our plum trees in early February. And my husband records, when they swell every year, and that was two months early, they don't start to swell usually until early April. These kinds of things are out of our control. Perennials are responding to the temperatures that are obviously warmer and the daylight. So the daylight is-- and now we're moving into that daylight, so things are going to start waking up.

But the good thing is that if we moderate a little and don't go totally crazy, I mean, I do look at the forecast and it does not it feels like we're still unbuckled. But these trees might hold steady. They have started responding. But if our temperatures come back even a little bit, they'll hold. Like my soil is still freezing. I mean, I checked it this morning and my garlic isn't up although I know it's up in the city for a lot of gardeners.

So it partly depends on your site. But yes, we might have no fruit this year. That could be a reality, I thought about that in January, like wow, like we might lose all of our buds if we get a really hard freeze in April. Fruit trees can take some frost though. You'd be surprised. Like depending on the stage of the buds, temperatures even down to 20 isn't going to be 100% kill, might not even be a 50% kill.

So that's where I'm saying we have to find a way to take each week as it comes and really see how the season unfolds. I don't consider it a wash by any means.

CATHY WURZER: OK. I had an MPR listener send me-- a lot of people have been sending me photographs of their perennials popping up their little heads saying, what should I do? What should I do? And I'm thinking, well, don't look at me, I'm the type of person who has not a clue. And I tend to want to try to solve a problem. So I thought, well, could you just run out there and dump a bunch of hay on top of them as for mulch or are these poor little perennials toast at this point?

MEG COWDEN: Yeah. If temperatures are going to get really cold, you could cover them. I'm letting things ride. I'm more of-- you know this is my curiosity, what's going to happen to them? Might some of them die? I don't think so. And even if we had buds that have leafed out a little, those buds might die but the plant is still alive. And the plant has resources to push out new leaves.

So even if you get a little bit of leaf damage maybe from some-- really, I mean, we'd have to be going into the teens or single digits, I think for things that have leafed out already to really have damage that's going to make us all really fret. I tend to think we're going to be OK. Honestly Cathy, could we have-- I don't think there's going to be a lot more snow because we have all this ground cover, and now we've got the sun, and the sun's warming the ground, and we've got-- it's like the opposite of last winter.

Last winter I was not expecting an early spring because of so much snow cover. So now I think we're hitting that tipping point where it's going to be hard to get snow. I'd be OK with snow still, I don't know about you. But I'm still like--

CATHY WURZER: Yeah. I still think any kind of moisture it would be good moisture. Because I'm kind of worried about drought and wildfires and things like that. Yikes.

MEG COWDEN: For sure.

CATHY WURZER: I'm wondering, for folks-- I know you're really good at this. The cold hardy crops you know that you normally see in the fall, I wonder could you maybe experiment and take advantage of this early spring and maybe try to do a little something with-- I don't know, what would you do, carrots? What's another hardy crop?

MEG COWDEN: Yeah. This is an emphatic, yes, so we have a new cold frame in our garden that my husband built last year. And I started sowing things in it about four weeks ago. And the sun doesn't come back until February, so things aren't really growing until later in February. But they germinated in about three weeks and that was my optimal ideal time. I'd like to have seen them germinate.

So I've got arugula that has germinated. I've got head lettuce that germinated. And I've got radishes that have germinated. So that's under cover. Now, you'd want to check your soil temperatures. I'm a big believer in using your soil temperatures. You want your soils about an inch below to be at least 45 degrees. I use a meat thermometer, nothing fancy, don't buy an extra gadget, you don't need it.

But let your soil temperatures be your guide. I also have sowed some onions outside under one of my low tunnels that I like to do. But I also sold some just in a garden bed. So I want to see when each of those will germinate. So this is a great opportunity, this is what I led with Cathy. We have an opportunity here to rethink how we're going to garden. And I encourage people to reach for spinach or arugula, kohlrabi, cabbages could maybe work.

And yes, carrots in a little bit, carrots maybe like a little warmer. Peas, soil temperatures of 50 degrees peas. You've got mustard greens, salad turnips radishes, all kinds of great things that-- some of those things you don't really see in the grocery store because maybe they don't travel as well or they aren't as popular. So there's a great opportunity to explore your palette and play with a little patch of Earth right now.

CATHY WURZER: You wouldn't recommend doing some cleaning-- early spring cleaning in the garden? Would you just leave that alone?

MEG COWDEN: No. I did see-- I heard a B. I barely saw it. I saw a few insects over the weekend. Well, it's the temperatures, they're coming out of dormancy. I know it makes me a little worried, like what the heck are they going to eat? I don't know. So no, I think we need to get. I would-- even though we're in early spring, I would still wait until sometime in April to do that.

I typically don't cut mine down until sometime in May, that's why I'm saying April. You want real consistent warm temps.

CATHY WURZER: Good. That's good to know. OK. So here's my takeaway. I would agree we're not in control. Now this is a-- this is a hard lesson for me to learn, Meg. Being a control freak too is that we're not in control. so I'm going to take your lead and we're going to ride it out and see what happens here.

MEG COWDEN: Yeah.

CATHY WURZER: I appreciate it.

MEG COWDEN: Yeah, we'll check back soon hopefully. All right.

CATHY WURZER: It was always been a-- really you're so much fun. Thank you, Meg. Thank you.

MEG COWDEN: Thanks, Cathy. All right. Enjoy the rest of the month.

CATHY WURZER: You too.

MEG COWDEN: Take care.

CATHY WURZER: You too. Meg Cowden, the author of Plant Grow Harvest Repeat, founder of the gardening advice group Modern Garden Guild. She's fantastic.