Editor’s note: Get Growing, written by the La Plata County Extension Office’s Master Gardener Program, appears every other week during the growing season. It features timely tips and suggestions for your garden and landscape.
By Darrin Parmenter
When does gardening season begin? For many of us, it started way back in the dregs of winter, plowing through seed catalogs, creating crop rotations and planting maps. We then jump into early spring when the transplants are started indoors and we seed those really hardy crops – spinach, lettuce, peas – directly into the garden beds.
Or perhaps the onset of the spring bulbs – crocus, daffodils, fritillaria and, finally, tulips – forces us to dig out the trowels, rakes and shovels.
But this Saturday may be the day, at long last, when we finally get our hands dirty. With temperatures forecast into the 70s and nights staying above freezing, planting season may be just around the corner. And fortunately for all of us plant junkies, there will be numerous opportunities to get all sorts of goodies:
The Garden Club of Durango will be hosting its annual plant sale from 9 to 10:30 a.m. at Santa Rita Park, south of downtown Durango off South Camino del Rio.
The Garden Club and Pine River Library are hosting a free plant exchange at the library in Bayfield from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
And lastly, Durango Nursery and Supply will be hosting a talk on vegetables given by yours truly from 10 to 11:30 a.m. The talk and demonstration, titled “Seeds, Varieties and Transplants, Oh My!” will focus on finding the perfect variety, the ideal transplant, and when and how to seed for successful germination. Also Saturday is a fantastic time to purchase all of your garden and landscape needs because Durango Nursery and Supply is donating 10 percent of the day’s proceeds to The Garden Project of Southwest Colorado. The funds will go toward the new and expanded Needham Elementary Garden, where we are in the process of creating a vegetable-growing bed for every classroom as well as numerous habitat-friendly and learning spaces in what will be an amazing space.
parmenterdm@co.laplata.co.us or 382-6464. Darrin Parmenter is director and horticulture agent of the La Plata County Extension Office.
