Don’t forget to feed your backyard visitors. Master Gardener Sue Kersey’s ‘no-fail’ suet recipe is below.
End-of-January duties include:
1. Check (and repair, if necessary) your irrigation system. It’s also a good time to design your system for the spring.
2. On those cold, rainy days, it is best to work inside and a wonderful opportunity to clean and oil gardening tools.
While you’re inside, start cutting wood for new raised beds. We use 8-foot-by-2-inch-by-10-inch boards. Why 8 feet long? Because an 8-foot board can be cut into a variety of sizes.
For instance: If you cut the board in half, you can have a 4-foot-by-4-foot square. Or, you can cut so you have 2-foot-by-2-foot square. If you would like to use your raised beds for asparagus, cut 2 feet off two 8-foot boards, and the end result is a 6-by-2 rectangle. However, you decide to design the shape of your raised beds — make sure you can easily reach the middle! (Yes, this is a lesson we learned the hard way.)
3. Mulch, mulch, and more mulch. That’s the keyword for winter. Mulch promotes moisture retention and offers protection from the cold. When applying mulch, it needs to be 3-4 inches thick. If you are placing mulch around a tree, leave a 2-inch ring of clear space around the trunk. If the mulch is close, touching the trunk, you will create a habitat for bugs that are harmful to your tree.
4. Fertilize your established pansies with dried blood meal or cottonseed meal at the rate of 3-4 pounds per 100 square-feet of flowerbed. What color of pansies did you plant?
5. Continue to prune the dead wood out of oaks and other shade trees. Removing the dead wood, especially “head height” branches, will provide kindling and allow sunlight to reach inside the umbrella of the tree.
6. With the heavy dew and rains, keep an eye on your bird feeders. You want to make sure you don’t allow the bird seed to mold. Moldy seed can make birds sick. Be kind to your backyard buddies.
If you have wooden bird feeders, you can apply the same oil that you use on cutting boards. We use Boos, but there are lots of great products from which to choose.
While you are being kind to your backyard buddies, here is Master Naturalists/Master Gardener Sue Kersey’s “no-fail” recipe for suet:
• 1 cup crunchy peanut butter
• 1 cup of lard
• 2 cups of quick cook oats
• 2 cups of corn meal
• 1 cup of flour
Melt lard and peanut butter in the microwave or over low heat on the stove. Stir in the remaining ingredients and pour into square freezer containers about ½-inch thick to fit your suet baskets. Store the mixture in the freezer until you are ready to put it in a suet basket.
The recipe makes about six suet cakes.
“It is fun to make, and our local birds just love it,” Kersey said.
Speaking of moisture and rain, while you are visiting your garden or prospective spots, write in your journal which places are draining well versus which spots are still mud puddles. This will come in handy when you start to plant, especially if what you have chosen to plant requires good drainage. Remember: We are experiencing an extremely wet winter. So where we used to plant knowing the seeds would survive might not be the same for this year. We’ve had lots of rain, and more is coming. If the water is holding in spots, seeds will rot, hence not a good place to plant.
Keep your souls and soles in your garden!
Remember the True Master Gardener: Jesus said, “I am the vine; my Father is the Gardener.” John 15:1
Contact Bill Luedecke at The Luedecke Group Realtors at (512) 577-1463 or email him at bill@texasland.net. Contact daughter Martelle Luedecke at Luedecke Photography at (512) 769-3179 or luedeckephotography@gmail.com.
