OSU Extension news

It is officially Spring time and with that one question I get this time of year, “Is it too early to be talking about planting flowers?” The answer is no! There are several popular tender garden annuals that can easily be started from seed in your home. Some need as much as 12 weeks to develop (which takes us to late May and June), so they should be started soon.

Speaking of plants and vegetables starting to grow. One of those, asparagus is getting a good start. The normal harvest is usually over a six-week period. For the first two weeks, pick all the asparagus growing. Then, allow a couple stalks to develop for each crown. These stalks will feed the crown and produce more harvestable spears. Harvest spears by snapping off the stems by hand about an inch above the ground or at their lowest natural breaking point. Stop picking altogether when the emerging spears are thinner than a pencil. This should extend the harvest by about two weeks and provide plenty of growth to allow strong crown development for next year. Now that the soil is close to fit for planting, it is a great time to plant potatoes, swiss chard, carrots, parsnips, onions, beets and radishes. We are almost to the time that we can even plant cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. Before too long it will be time to plant other garden vegetables and even our farm fields.

We have several OSU Extension events coming up so be sure to take note.

The Southwest Ohio Perennial School is on April 11th in Clermont County. Topics include wildlife in the landscape, boxwoods, insects, native trees, pollinators and more! Visit brown.osu.edu for more information on this event.

Next, is the Brown County Master Gardener Volunteer Seminar Series coming up on April 18. The topic will be container gardening including new plants to consider. This will be held at the Western Brown Community Room at 7pm.

All of these and more educational opportunities can be found on the brown.osu.edu website or our blog page – u.osu.edu/browncounty. As always, I look forward to working with you more, feel free to reach out by stopping by the office, calling, or sending me an email at 937-378-6716 or corboy.3@osu.edu. I am happy to help in all your agriculture, natural resources, and community development needs. CFAES provides research and related educational programs to clientele a nondiscriminatory basis. For more information, visit cfaesdiversity.osu.edu. For an accessible format of this publication, visit cfaes.osu.edu/accessibility.