March 15 in Zones 6-7 is typically held as the day to start direct-sowing cool-weather seeds such as snow peas in the ground. Last night the temperatures dropped to 28F, but there was no frost. As you can see in the above forecast, we’re in for an abnormally warm week for early March, but our nights are supposed to stay between 30-40F. Days will continue to get longer and nights shorten. No rain expected, so it will be safe to work the soil.

Annuals planting

Here are my cool-weather seeds for the garden this spring:

• Minowase daikon (white radish)
• Hollow crown parsnip
• Hamburg rooted parsley (Hamburg turnip)
• Broadleaf upland cress
• Chervil
• Spinach and lettuce, which I still need to pick up

All of the seeds I already have are heirlooms from Rohrer Seeds, a local seed and supply company in Lancaster, PA. They are reasonably priced, have a large selection of flower and vegetable seeds, and some of the seed packets are even compostable! If you’re looking at $3-5 seed packets at a local box store garden center (yikes!), consider shopping online instead. Everything I’m planting was $1.99 per pack.

Without a greenhouse or cold frame, I won’t be starting any other seeds yet. In theory, I could start other seeds indoors — but the cats have the run of the only room in the house where there is enough natural light. Given that flowers and vegetables aren’t the focus this year, I’m going to skip this part of the early spring preparations.

Perennial care

If I had strawberries or raspberries to plan, now would be the time to do it. Since mine are already wintered over, I just need to trim the raspberry canes back 1/4 (those that will fruit this year) or to ground (those that fruited last year).

We won’t be fertilizing this spring, so the blueberries don’t need anything right now.

What I do have to deal with are the goji berry and dwarf cherries that arrived last week. Half of those will go in their respective boxes today or tomorrow, and half will be potted (just in case). This year’s new additions come from Gurney’s.

In previous years, I’ve purchased from Nourse Farms (Joan J’s thornless raspberries) and Ken’s Gardens (the blueberries), which is literally right across the road from Rohrer Seeds. I can’t say enough good things about my experience with both.

Our serviceberry is a now-defunct nursery in northern Berks County. Our thornless blackberries come from a friend who had been growing them for years — and we’ve been growing them since at least 2015.

I have indirect experience with Stark Bro’s and can really only say that they’re too expensive for me.

Flower bed clean-up

We have our snowdrops and crocuses right now, and the winter aconite is showing its face (needs to be culled). It looks like we have a few spring bulbs putting up shoots as well.

I have to resist cleaning up the flower beds too much until later in the month for the sake of the pollinators. I can probably cut back the lavender and thin the leaf matter from the azaleas/rhododendrons. The winds have deposited a lot of sticks that are fair game for removal as well.

If I’m feeling ambitious, I could wind up bringing out the power trimmer and chain saw to clean up/clear out some side yard shrubs. I’ll need to check that our annual access card to the township dump is active, although we will probably be using it less this year than any year prior.