For:
By: Daniel E. Mullins
Extension Horticulture Agent
You Don’t Gain a Thing by Rushing
Spring
Warm days in February tempt us to get started with spring gardening activities. Though there are plenty of other things to do in the landscape during this month, it is too early for planting summer annuals and warm season vegetables. Real spring weather is still several weeks away.
The tomato is the most common victim of extremely early planting. It seems that we can’t wait to put some plants in the ground, expecting to be the first to feast upon the home grown fruit.
Tomato, being a tropical plant, doesn’t appreciate being exposed to cold air and soil temperatures. Though we might provide special care such as covering the young plants during frosty nights, they usually struggle to survive and grow very little until spring arrives.
The growth and development of tomato, like other warm season plants, is driven by soil and air temperature. Until the soil temperature reaches about 70 degrees F. or greater and stabilizes, root growth is slow. The top portion of a tomato plant is equally sensitive. Growth will not occur, or will be very slow until both day and night temperatures warm up.
Even if you were able to somehow cause a tomato plant to grow in February or early March, it wouldn’t be able to set fruit yet. Successful pollination of tomato is governed by night temperatures and the minimum temperature for acceptable fruit set is about 68 degrees F. That’s the reason that the gardener who plants in early March generally harvests fruit at the same time as another who establishes plants two or three weeks later.
Tomato is used here as an example just because it is so popular and has perhaps received more study than most warm season plants. Even though I stress the need to wait until the weather warms up, don’t overreact and plant too late either.
Tomato plants set fruit best when night temperatures are between approximately 68 and 73 degrees F. It is possible to set out plants too late in the spring. They must have time to grow and produce flowers before extremely hot nights begin in July.
So when is the best time to plant the warm season vegetables and annual
flowers? I can’t provide an exact
date because each spring is different.
Sometimes we have an early spring along the
While we are waiting, there are other gardening jobs that can be done in February. A spray containing horticultural oil emulsion, sometimes known as dormant oil, can be applied to shrubs for controlling over-wintering scale insects.
Read and follow label directions carefully.
Finish pruning grape vines, blackberries, peaches and most other fruits. Delay the pruning of blueberry plants until harvest is completed in June. Do any necessary pruning of crape myrtle, hibiscus, althea and other summer flowering shrubs.
Do not prune the spring flowering shrubs yet. Any needed pruning of azalea, Camellia, Spirea, Wisteria and Forsythia should be delayed until shortly after the flowering season is over. Late in the month begin removing cold and hurricane damaged branches from shrubs and tender perennials. In the vegetable garden, there is still time to plant Irish potatoes, English peas and snow peas.
And while on the subject of delaying certain jobs, it is still too early
for fertilizing the lawn. Wait
until a uniform green-up is seen.
The extremely early application of a nitrogen containing fertilizer can
encourage premature growth which might be more susceptible to cold injury. Your winter weeds on the other hand,
would love a dose of fertilizer but I doubt that is the desired
outcome.