In the Garden with Kerry Heafner

Preparing for a Seasonal Spring

article by Kerry Heafner

March is a pivotal month for our gardens and landscapes in the ArkLaMiss in many ways. We have a better idea of how and when winter will morph into seasonal spring. We can anticipate our last frosts and freezes sometime during the middle or late part of this month. As temperatures moderate and the number of daylight increases, the spring bloom will begin and lawns will wake up from winter dormancy. There’s a lot to do in vegetable gardens, ornamental beds, and lawns, so let’s get to it!

For veggie gardens, seeds of tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, eggplants, can be started during this month for transplanting to the garden later next month or in early May. Seeds of butter beans, snap beans, cucumbers, and squash may be sown directly into the garden late this month as the soil warms up. Leafy crops like collards, mustard greens, and turnips can be seeded for a second crop if your late summer and fall plantings from last year have played out. And, don’t forget radishes and spinach. If you’ve never grown English peas (Pisum sativum), you’re missing out. They’re a different bird than the traditional field pea (Vigna unguiculata) that is commonly grown in the heat of summer. These are garden peas or green peas and snow peas. They don’t mind a little chilly weather and the rewards are two-fold. First, their high sugar content is immediately apparent when you taste them raw fresh off the vine. Second, the vines are a wonderful addition to the compost pile when production is over. Why? Because being legumes, they’re nitrogen fixers. This means their roots are colonized by a bacterium that converts nitrogen from the atmosphere into nitrates (i.e., fertilizers). It’s win-win when you can get a good harvest and do something beneficial to the soil!

And speaking of composting….

Every home should have a compost pile somewhere on the property for converting plant-based kitchen and lawn waste into “black gold.” When done right, composting is an odor-free endeavor and, if you’re gardening for the first time this spring, there’s no better activity that starting a compost pile and watching it cook through the summer. The materials that is ultimately form finished compost are broken down by soil microbes with the help of moisture that you and Mother Nature provide. The interior of the compost pile heats up to temperatures close to 150° F because of all the microbial activity. You can actually open the center of your compost pile in the middle of winter and see steam rise and feel the warmth of the material. You’ll want to crawl in and curl up! Finished compost will look like moist chocolate cake crumbs. There will be no better soil amendment to your gardens than homemade compost.

If your landscape needs color this month, look no farther than cool-season Louisiana Super Plants! The new cool-season selection for 2019 is the Jolt™ series of dianthus. These are more compact than the Amazon™ series but both are perfect for late winter and early spring colors. Select from ‘Cherry,’ ‘Pink,’ and ‘Pink Magic’ in the Jolt™ series and consider ‘Neon Cherry,’ ‘Neon Purple,’ and ‘Rose Magic’ in the Amazon™ series. The ‘Sorbet’ series of violas is also perfect for cool season color and there’s still plenty of time to plant. ‘Yellow Dust’ in this series is a local favorite because it sports LSU purple and gold! ‘Diamonds Blue’ delphinium makes a wonderful contrast to reds and pinks. And don’t forget about ‘Camelot’ foxgloves. For flowers this season, purchase these biennials in their second year. You’ll see basal rosettes of leaves but they should send up a flower stalk if they’re two years old. Stay tuned! I’ll have more about the LSU AgCenter’s 2019 Louisiana Super Plant selections in future issues.

One of the most commonly asked questions this time of year is when to put a weed-and-feed product on the lawn. Remember, our Deep South turf grasses like St. Augustine, centipede, Bermuda, and zoysia are still dormant in the early part of this month and will be waking up as we approach April. Weed now. Feed later. Weeds visible now are the winter weeds that are nearing the ends of their life cycles. They can be treated now with post-emergent herbicides like atrazine, 2,4-D, or one of the Trimec-type herbicides. These are combination of 2,4-D, dicamba, and mecoprop. Weed Free Zone is a product by Ferti-Lome® that has proven very effective on broadleaf weeds in our lawns. These products are effective in spring when temperatures are relatively mild. As we move into summer and we soar into the 90s and above, other products have to be used to avoid volatilization and drift. Keep in mind that a heavy infestation of weeds may indicate a shift in your lawn’s soil chemistry. This will allow weeds to colonize and outcompete your turfgrass for water and nutrients. Performing a soil test will tell you exactly what you need to add to your soil to fix the problem whether it’s moving the pH up or down or adding back a nutrient that’s been depleted. Soil test kits are available at any LSU AgCenter extension office.

Let’s check the calendar. A lot of gardening events are scheduled in our North Louisiana this month.

• March 2nd, Square Foot Gardening Seminar, Louisiana Nursery, Keithville, 9:00 a.m.
• March 6th, spring Master Gardener class, Ouachita Parish Extension Office. Deadline for registering was February 15th. If you want to be a Master Gardener volunteer, I’ll try to hold a fall class. Stay tuned for updates!
•  March 9th, Worm Composting is Fun! Gardening Seminar, Louisiana Nursery, Keithville, 9:00 a.m.
•  March 16th, Super Saturday at the Children’s Coalition Family Garden, 117 Hall Street in downtown Monroe, 9:00 a.m. to Noon.
•  March 16th, Household Hazardous Waste Collection by Ouachita Green, Ike Hamilton Expo Center, West Monroe, 9:00 a.m.
•  March 23rd, P. Allen Smith at the Biedenharn, Biedenharn Gardens and Museum, Monroe. 1:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Ticket required.
•  March 23rd, For the Love of Herbs Gardening Seminar, Louisiana Nursery, Keithville, 9:00 a.m.
• March 29th and 30th, NELA Master Gardeners Spring Plant Sale, Market at Seventh Square, West Monroe. Sale begins at noon on the 29th and 9:00 a.m. on the 30th.
• March 30th, Butterfly and Hummingbird Gardening Seminar, Louisiana Nursery, Keithville, 9:00 a.m.

For advice on how to make your garden thrive, go to the Ag Journal page at www.myarklamiss.com and submit your questions to. I’ll answer them every Tuesday on Louisiana Living!