Garden Blog January 2023

Tim’s Garden Center Notes

Garden Blog by Tim Thompson – Your Hometown Garden Guy

This Garden Blog will specifically talk about tips for January Gardening in Wimberley, Texas! We hope you enjoy the read. The freakish weather patterns, hot and cold, dry and wet, from the poles and the tropics have become the mainstays of our Texas forecasts. Due to this, I suggest that you learn what you need to do to protect your home, family, and garden, and stay ready to act when necessary. For instance, I have learned to wrap and insulate the outdoor faucets and pile mulch around the roots of some shrubs and trees. Besides leaving one faucet dripping on the coldest nights, we cover our wellhead, pressure tank, and all associated plumbing and plug in a couple of lamps under the cover. Bringing in tropical plants and draining hoses is also a good idea!

Garden Blog January Chores

While this is the “quiet season” in the gardening world, there are a few essential chores for Wimberley gardeners to remember.

Chief among those is tree pruning. Click this link to see all the Tree Pruning Products available at the store. Dormancy means less stress on the trees, and the insects that can spread disease from one open wound to another are usually gone for the season. Most trees need only dead or damaged limbs removed as well as any that rub against one another or a nearby structure. REMEMBER THIS IMPORTANT THING: For the same reasons you would want your surgeon to do so, be sure to sterilize all your tools between patients. Using a 10% bleach solution will prevent the spreading of any pathogens from one tree to another. As extra protection against disease, I recommend you paint your cuts with pruning sealer as soon as they are made.

Practice pruning that is safe for your trees. Make clean cuts that cannot collect rain that would encourage rot. Don’t leave stubs, but rather prune right up to the collar from whence a branch begins to grow. All pruning tools should be sharp and clean to avoid spreading disease.

Pruning can be an inherently dangerous job. We want you to have a terrific, healthful gardening season this year and every year, so please do remember that any job involving ladders, sharp tools, or power equipment requires the utmost attention to safety. Wear protective gear appropriate to your task, especially gloves and eye and hearing protection. Be careful.

Garden Blog Fruit Tree January Care

Fruit trees require slightly different treatment. In very young trees, choose two or three balanced leading branches, and remove all others, always finishing the ends of the branches with an angled cut just above an outward facing bud. As they mature, remove branches that threaten to cross or rub, and all those growing toward the center of the tree to encourage a wide-open canopy with lots of air circulation and sunshine down into the center of the tree. This task will maximize fruit production and minimize disease problems. After the first few years of shaping cuts, only maintenance pruning should be necessary.

Garden Center Vegetables

January is the time to remember some delicious veggies. Potatoes are planted this month and into early/mid-February to get them ready to produce tons of tubers later in the spring. We’ll have a ready supply of both red and white certified seed potatoes beginning early in the month. Pick up a free copy of Tim’s Tips for growing potatoes, as they are grown in a distinctive
manner.

Asparagus is also grown in an unusual fashion, and we have the crowns available now. They are already two years old, and a year or two should be plenty to get them established and producing lots of delicious spears for your table in the early spring.

If you have not yet planted your bulb onions, you still have time, but they should be planted by mid- February. We’ll keep all your favorite varieties in stock to produce loads of sweet, tasty bulbs later this spring.

Our gardens may appear dead, but they are only down for their annual sleep, and are full of life, nonetheless. The roots of perennials and trees are exchanging minerals and water with the earth even as they bring nutrition to rosettes and buds in preparation for the season just a few weeks away.

Take the opportunity this winter to enrich the soil in your garden to replace the nutrients used in making all those tasty, nutritious veggies last year. Our gardens grow all year on the soil we create now. Enrich it as needed with organic material, like compost, manure, or peat moss, and add trace minerals if you haven’t added them for a while. Add cottonseed meal or blood meal, rock phosphate or bone meal, and add greensand for potassium, and get ready for a great gardening year!