Community Garden: Guthrie garden needs its own “rat”

The cold is here again and I hope you were able to turn your garden soil when the days were a little warmer.

This kind of cold will kill flea and tick eggs and take care of most of the buried eggs from the garden critters of last year. Four days of constant temperatures below freezing will normally put a big dent in the critter population. That doesn’t mean that it will get all of them but it means you might be able to control what you do get a lot easier.

Make sure your tools are sharp and oiled. Use this cold weather to turn on the heater in the garage and get some work done. Those of you that start your own seeds need to have your tomato and pepper seeds in your planter pots. Keep them moist but not drenched and then when they sprout pay close attention and gently water them a couple of times each day very lightly. As they begin to grow you have to make sure that you are ready to move them to a bigger pot if necessary.

You don’t want your plants becoming root bound in any kind of a pot. When you transplant the tender young plants you don’t want any of the roots sticking to the sides of those pots because if you tear the small roots you will do more damage than you think. Be careful and gentle and pay attention. Once it starts to warm u a little it will be time to put out your compost and mulch.

There will be more snow and rain before it is planting time and the moisture will help the compost move into the soil. The mulch will also start to control the temperature of the soil and control the moisture content. You will notice this when you start to plant your seeds and young plants. But winter is still here and that overgrown “rodent” in the northeast part of the country said he saw his shadow on a cloudy, overcast day. Hard to imagine how that happened.

I guess the floodlights and camera lights count in these matters. Anyway, according to “Phil” we are due for six more weeks of winter. Since when did we need a “rat” to tell us that. Maybe I need one of those in the garden and start selling tickets. I need someone to build me an escape proof cave of some kind and then we have to find our own “rat” to use here in Oklahoma. I need some suggestions here! It would not be fair to import some critter from some other territory and trust me you don’t want to use a skunk and prairie dogs are just not friendly.

So help me out here and help me find some critter to live in the garden that is friendly that we won’t get in trouble for caging the poor thing and selling tickets to look at his shadow and no spousal recommendations please!