Despite cold and damp, there’s still plenty you can do

Norm Lynds laughs when I ask about the weather this spring.

An especially cold, wet spring is delaying him from working the ground in his Snohomish area vegetable garden.

“Last year and this year I’ve had a late start,” he said. “The weather warmed in February and got the juices flowing, then a cold snap killed an awful lot of plants. It’s a really messed up year.”

If you’re pining for a vegetable garden, don’t despair. Even if your soil is still too wet to work like Lynds’, there is still plenty of time and plenty of things to do.

First, determine if the soil is dry enough by squeezing a handful. If it forms into a snake, hold off. If it crumbles nicely, you can begin planting cool weather crops such as peas, lettuce, spinach, parsley and broccoli.

Lynds is spending his time nurturing his seedlings in the greenhouse. If you’ve started seeds and they are getting leggy, you can put them outside under a cold frame, a wood framed box with a plastic or glass top that protects tender plants from cold temperatures. If you don’t want to bother with that, bring them outside during the day and put them inside at night.

His seedlings are too big for the little trays he started them in so he transfers them into plastic trays with bigger, deeper compartments using a planting mix.

Lynds grows a 30-foot long bed of strawberries in a sunny spot. If you’d like to try planting some this year, till the ground, and add a good balanced fertilizer and some compost, he said.

Starts are available at plant sales and nurseries. Decide if you want June bearing strawberries, which bare fruit all at once or everbreaing, which produce a few berries at a time over a longer period of time. June bearers are great for preserves and jam and everbearers are what you want for a few berries for the morning cereal, he said. Lynds grows the June bearing variety Rainier and two years ago his plot produced 53 gallons of fruit.

Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com.