• Organize your seeds from last year and order what you need.
• Buy enough seeds for fall planting.
• Purchase or make your own planting mix (see below)
• Continue to plant annual and perennial flowers in outdoor containers.
• Dig out the propagation trays and pots and start sowing indoors.

Seeds indoors: fava beans, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, celeriac, cardoons, kale, leeks, lettuces (if not direct seeded, to be set out April 1).  If you have a greenhouse or protected garden, try plant Eggplants, peppers, tomatoes and basil indoors for an early crop.

Trees: prune fruit trees and fruit-bearing shrubs, but especially apple and crabapple trees.

Pest Prevention: Plan to rotate crops over 3 or 4 years — Roots, Legumes, Brassicas, Others.  Flea beetles lay eggs in the soil where you last planted brassicas (mustard, cabbage). A different flea beetle attacks the nightshade (tomato, pepper, potato) family.

 
Bountea Compost Tea:  Build up the soil for spring with Bountea, M3 and Root Web.  Use SuperStart when planting or transplanting seeds.

• Vermiculite is a heat treated mica-type mineral that helps retain moisture.
• Perlite is a white popped volcanic ash that lightens the mix and creates good drainage.
• Minerals and fertilizers: these are needed by the seedling as it starts to develop.  Choose good quality organic nutrients and not quick-acting chemicals.
• Wetting agents or hydrogels are manufactured polyacrylamide gels that expand and hold water.  While deemed “safe”, these gels may contain or breakdown into a neurotoxin and carcinogen called acrylamide.  My recommendation: DO NOT use a seed mix with wetting agents for starting vegetables and do not add wetting agents to your garden soil.

Make Your Own Seed Mix

It is not usually recommended to use garden soil for seed starting; it may contain disease spores that cause damping off or other problems.  However, biodynamic gardeners do use a mix of their best top soil and well-aged compost.   

Traditional home-made seed mix recipes consist mainly of peat moss, compost and sand, often with additional worm-castings or minerals.

My own adaptation is:

• 4 parts buffered coir
• 2 parts Alaska Humisoil
• 1 part washed sand
• Dash of SuperStart for Plants and/or Marine Mineral Magic

Put through a 1/4″ screen and mix well in a 20 gallon tote.  I always experience fast germination, no diseases and exceptional seedling growth.  Try it for yourself!     

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