January
• Take an inventory of your seeds. Check old seeds for viability by testing a few.
Place seeds between moist paper towels and if germination is low, discard and
purchase new seeds.
• Plan for a great garden! Lay out your garden plan on graph paper or use a
computer database. Rotate vegetable crops to different locations each season.
• Browse through garden seed catalogs and place mail orders for new seeds.
• Start seeds of spring flowers such as pansies, dusty miller, browallia, begonias,
snapdragons, and delphiniums indoors under fluorescent lighting.
• Save wood ashes from the fireplace (keep dry) for the garden as they provide
calcium, potash, and phosphoric acid plus trace elements.
• At the end of the month, start seeds of onions, leeks, broccoli, cabbage, and
cauliflower under fluorescent lighting.
• Condition your wooden handle tools with floor wax or oil.
• Force bulbs which have been held in the cold.
• Make a composter bin, cold frame, or any other indoor project that you will use
later.
• Study the “skeleton” of your winter landscape and try to picture where you
would place a pathway, arbor, or other improvement.
• Remove heavy snow off shrubs.
• On mild days, remove winter weeds of chickweed, hairy bittercress, and wild
onions.
• Hardwood cuttings may be made from garden shrubs, using new wood. Make
cuttings 6 inches long, tie in bundles, and pack in damp sawdust or peat moss
with the upper end exposed.
• Grape vines may be pruned now.
• Cut down vines that are damaging trees.
• If you till your soil in the spring this is a good time to lay manure and ground
limestone over the soil or snow.
