Gardening in Cary: January Tips

Cary, NC — Whether you’ve discovered a green thumb during the pandemic or have been a lifetime horticulturalist, there’s always something that can be done to improve or add to your garden each month.

Cleaning Up the Foundation

January is a great month for clean-up and preparation in your gardening space. This is especially important if you had an active garden bed last year as vegetable matter can harbor diseases and create a home for unwanted bugs.

On a warmer day this month, head outside and give your soil the reboot it needs. Clear out those dead leaves and work on ridding your gardening beds of any weeds or dead plants. Then, when you’ve got the time, get to work on replenishing your foundation of soil by adding in fertilizer, compost, or other organic materials that will help your garden thrive.

One last recommendation for the garden this January is pruning. These colder temperature days are a great time to root prune, transplant, or prune up woody things such as roses, shrubs and trees in the yard.

A Few Early Plantings to Get 2022 Started

While it is quite early to expect most plants, vegetables and herbs to survive, there are a couple of early-season spring veggies you could go ahead and plant.

Cabbage

Cabbage is a cool-weather crop and can be grown throughout the spring so that it comes to harvest before the summer heat. To help it thrive, start with seeds planted indoors for about 4-6 week before making the transfer outdoors.

Broccoli

Broccoli is a vegetable that prefers full sun, so be sure to choose a garden location which provides a minimum of 6 to 8 hours of direct sunlight daily. Be prepared to wait as broccoli is typically a slow-growing plant that can take 50 to 100 days to reach maturity, though times differ among broccoli varieties.

Growing broccoli in organic, rich and well-drained soil is best and fertilizing seedlings and young transplants will certainly help to maintain steady growth.

Chives

If you’re itching to get something planted ahead of the typical growing season, chives are one of the easiest plants to grow indoors over the winter.

They tolerate the lower light of the winter sun and typical temperature fluctuations that they may experience on a kitchen windowsill.

Story by Ashley Kairis. Garden bed photo by David Morcovits.

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