Homesteading Spring Planting Tips for February

Spring planting tips for homesteading - Ok, I know its only February but spring is here, right? Sure it is. In many ways we all have declared winter a thing of the past. If you are like me you are sorting seeds, getting those little spring plants tucked into egg shells full of dirt and thinking about gardening, and baby chicks. In our hearts we have declared winter officially over. The snow just hasn't gotten the memo on it yet.

Some of the things I do to declare winter being officially over is to do the following. I do this every year the first of February - blizzards or not. My friends knowing that I don't buy eggs bring me egg cartons all year round. I know they hope I will fill them up and return them. Most of the time I do. However there is no way my birds can lay that many cartons of eggs a day.

Spring Planting Tips using Egg Cartons

I store these egg cartons for just such a time in my life that I can't take winter one more day. Now you can do this with or with out the egg shells. I like the egg shells because they just add that look that says SPRING! The shell will also break up in the dirt when you replant your seedlings. So I save the shell halves and put 1-3 seeds in each. There in their egg cartons the seeds are safe and grow wonderfully in a window or under grow lights.

Spring Planting Tips and Spring Bulbs

Another all time "save me" is to keep some spring bulbs back in the fall and about this time of year, plant them in pots, shallow bowls of water or whatever you can find. You can even put them in with existing plants. All they need is lots of water and you will have tulips, and buttercups in about 2 weeks, just in time for that last snow storm you just didn't want to deal with.

Like they say in cowboy school ( you know the school where you are lying in the dirt with a broken arm) Attitude is Everything! So the main thing about conquering winter and declaring it officially over, even with that 8' of snow in the front yard, is attitude.

What changes my whole perception of the world is smell and light, color to be exact. The more color the happier I am and the more things smell like a spring day the better my attitude.

Spring Planting Tips and Window Boxes

Normally in the fall, garden stores will have sales on window boxes and plants that will never make it though the winter, not outside in this weather. You can grow grapes, raspberries and lots of things in the house until spring time arrives. Then replant them. This way you have the joy of gardening all winter long without that grape vine taking over your house, as it will be moved to a sunny location well before it out grows that pot.

Herbs in window boxes smell wonderfully every time you water them. In a dry winter house, that's every day. I purposely walk by and brush them to make that smell fill the room. Who needs AirWick when you have basil and rosemary?

This year I did something that went out on a limb. I put in a permanent long window box type planter made of old barn wood. Then I lined it with a thick plastic lawn bag. I put a 3" grow light above it and planted hanging strawberries. I soon learned that the hanging part needs light too, and in the winter there isn't much. So I had to work with the lights and instal one more facing out. The cost was $ 40.00 for lights and all. A small price for winter color and the feeling that life had not forgotten me while the world outside was dead and gone.

Bringing a bit of spring time to your home is a way to help that winter attitude so much of us suffer from when you live in the north country. When you smile more you get more done, you love yourself more and life just seems better.

So save those egg cartons, plant those spring bulbs and deny winter the depression it is famous for. Our homesteading attitude for spring planting will conquer even the worst winter blues.

By Gypsy, our resident homestead blogger from One Sky Ranch Gypsy's Wanderings Homestead Blog