The Victory Garden Thread - March, 2026

March 1, 2026 | Diana in WI/Greeneyes in Memoriam

[Diana in Wisconsin]

The MONTHLY Gardening Thread is a gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you.

If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located.

This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked.

It is impossible to hijack the Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table Recipes, Preserving, Good Living - there is no telling where it will go - and that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us! Send a Private Message to Diana in Wisconsin if you'd like to be added to/removed from our New & Improved Ping List.

NOTE: This is a once a MONTH Ping List, but we DO post to the thread all throughout the month. Links to related articles and discussions which might be of interest to Gardeners are welcomed any time.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

What growing zone are you in?

[MomwithHope]

I highly recommend putting them in larger pots. I use large tall cottage cheese containers with a few holes punched in the bottom. Add about 1/2 of good nutrient soil and put in your smaller plant. Add some soil around the edges. It will easily buy you another couple of weeks.

[ansel12]

8a and 8b, the plants will do fine if I plant them now but if I repotted them I could get them looking better and stronger and more durable, but......... if I repotted them how long would they need to spend in the new pots before I ground planted them, how long does it take them to recover and gain something from the repotting?

If it takes too long to make a gain from repotting, or if little is gained, then I may as well put them into the ground right now, my ground temperatures are adequate already.

[ansel12]

See post 643, I don’t need to delay anything due to weather or temperatures, my actual basic question is how long does it take to make worthwhile gains by repotting, how long does it take the plant to recover and benefit from the repotting, 2 weeks, 3, 4 weeks?

[Diana in Wisconsin]

If this is your normal planting time, then go ahead and put them in the ground.

HOWEVER - I think you’ll have better results and less loss if you follow my lead:

My tomato plants are re-potted from under lights in the house when they have two sets of ADULT leaves (not the little seed leaves) for about 4 weeks before I plant mine at the end of May. They also go into the unheated greenhouse then because it’s plenty warm in there.

Then, I move them outside during the day, and inside at night to ‘harden them off’ which makes the plant stronger. The wind moves them around a bit to toughen up the stems.

I put a 1/2 cup of crushed eggshells and a 1/2 cup of bone meal in the planting holes when I plant them out, then I cage them and fertilize them when I see the first blooms forming. The first items prevent Blossom End Rot. Works like a charm.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I’ll just add that the optimal ‘age’ for planting out tomatoes is 8 weeks old, from germination.

They’ve done numerous studies planting at 8 weeks, 10 weeks, 12 weeks and the 8 week old tomato plants catch up quickly to the others grown on in pots for a few more weeks.

Another reason I like my plants larger than fresh out of the 4-pack when they go in is that I can plant them deeper. All those hairs on the stem will become roots, so that benefits the plant, greatly. Also, planting them deeper gives them more protection from wind damage as they have a deeper ‘base’ than a more shallowly planted tomato.

[FrozenAssets]

It is hard to get excited about gardening. We had 4 degrees this morning. It is 11 below in town. First morning I can remember above zero. The snow is still about 3 feet deep. There may have been some sublimation, but no melting. They are saying it may get up to freezing next week. The last time it was officially at 32 above was October 31st, 2025. We are having pretty sunny days, but cold. It has been running a consistent 20 to 30 degrees below normal. Not that anything around here is normal!

[Augie]

Spoonbill isn't my favorite. I think that's probably because it's almost always over-cooked. Somehow I managed to remember that and was careful to keep the fry oil under 300°F while I was cooking this batch.

It came out perfect. Tender and juicy instead of tough and dry like the bottom of a coal miner's boot.

I'd never tried deep-fried asparagus but figured it was worth a shot. Turned out it was a bullseye. Absolutely fantastic! I will definitely be cooking it like that again when the opportunity presents.

Miss Laney says I'm not to get any ideas about using Howard for a heating pad because he belongs to her and she's not in a sharing mood. lol

My back feels a little better today. It's still a bit irritated from the injections but the constant burning/spasms has settled way down. I'll do a couple light chores outside but I'm not going to go crazy and wreck myself. Picking the mess up off the ground inside the hoop house frame feels like something I can accomplish today without going overboard. If that goes well I think I'll bring the tiller tractor up to the workshop and replace the distributor cap, rotor button, and breaker points. I can do that sitting in a chair. lol

I might run to town later and buy a sack of seed potatoes. Cheap as spuds are in the grocery I probably shouldn't take up the garden space with them, but we absolutely love new potatoes cooked in a cream sauce, and if you want new potatoes you pretty much have to grow your own. Think maybe I'll fluff up a spot along the back fence. I wouldn't even need to run the tiller on it - just buzz it down to bare dirt with the weed whacker, throw about six inches of good topsoil down, toss the spuds on that, and cover em up with finished compost. It might work.

Buying baby chicks locally is a hit or miss deal. If you're not picky about breed selection it's easy. If you want what you want it's not easy at all. One breed will arrive at the farm-n-home store this week, another breed will arrive next week, and it might be another two weeks before the third breed arrives. Putting day-old chicks in the brooder house with week-old chicks is certain doom for the day-old birds so we have to buy everything in one go. This year that means a four hour round trip to Cackle Hatchery in Lebanon, MO. I placed an order for a dozen Easter Eggers, four New Hampshire Reds, and four Barred Rocks yesterday - chicks hatch tomorrow. We'll drive down Tuesday morning to pick them up.

[Augie]

I'm playing catch-up again...

My ‘secret ingredient’ when I make Chili is beer. Any kind will do - the cheaper the better! ;) I’ve also heard that adding a bar of dark chocolate to Chili is really something to write home about, though I’ve never tried it.

Yes to beer and YES YES YES to dark chocolate. #2 Navy Son brought that idea to us from Cali when he separated from the Navy. It definitely adds a "wow factor" to the flavor of your chili, but you'd never guess that it came from a chocolate bar.

[Augie]

Some of our daffodils survived, but, our 2 little plum trees flowers look whacked...

The blossoms on my plum trees were wiped out by that freeze a couple weeks ago. I expected the pears would be wrecked too but they came through with very little damage. Apples and peaches weren't fooled by the early warm weather so I'm hoping they will be ok too.

[MomwithHope]

I have not seen any lag due to recovery.

[ansel12]

I don’t understand what you were saying, repotting them and then two weeks later they went into the ground without any signs of lag or what?

[ansel12]

I still don’t know what you are saying.

You repot young vegetable plants before putting into the ground and don’t see any lag from the repotting? That’s it?

[MomwithHope]

I can only share my experience. We have very rich garden soil. So no shock from a new soil and they go in the garden with very little disturbance. For me in west Michigan its all about the temperature.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Yes, Alaska is definitely a land unto itself!

Beau will be visiting your state to hunt Moose this season; he has a good friend that lives up there. Not sure if it’s spring or fall this year - he needs a Travel Agent to keep it all straight for him. And that ain’t me! ;)

As long as the current steer is butchered and in the freezer, he can do as he pleases after Stew’s ‘Spa Date’ in April. ;)

I can see where you would be even more dejected than I am some late springs as far as gardening goes. But, ‘finding other things to do’ when you want to play in the DIRT isn’t much fun, either.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Love to Howard and Miss Laney. She’s got it good!

That’s so nice that you can order smaller amounts of the chicks that you want. The nursery I’ve used in the past had to ship 50 chicks at a time for body-heat reasons. It wasn’t a problem when I was RAISING 50 layers at a time back in the day, but it would be, now.

Once ‘The Girls’ kick it into High Gear later this spring, we will be swimming in eggs - but I have plenty of family and friends that will take them off my hands and a stockpile of recipes that use up a lot of eggs.

[Paul R.]

Oddly, our Menards had herbs (plants) from 2 different suppliers, but the selection was poor.

I’d have bought a catnip plant or two if they’d had any.

I guess I should do an AI search for what other plants cats are attracted to, but won’t harm them. The cats chew on wifey’s lemon grass plants, sometimes, but then they (the cats that is!) spit it up a lot. ...Usually when they came back in the house. So, I protect the lemon grass with fencing around it (chicken wire).

The idea is to attract the cats to areas I want to drive squirrels away from. It seemed to be working, last year, at least in terms of attracting our cats, but I only had one small area of catnip going.

[Qiviut]

I found this recipe a couple of days ago. It uses a dozen eggs, but it’s easy to cut in half. I made a half batch yesterday - it’s pretty good.

The Masters Egg Salad (Egg Salad Sandwich Recipe)
https://imhungryforthat.com/masters-egg-salad/

From link: “You can’t watch the Masters without a Masters egg salad sandwich, and this version nails the one you’d get in person. It’s creamy, tangy, and just a little smoky, with pickle juice, lemon juice, mustard, and a touch of hot sauce to keep it bright and addictive. It tastes like the iconic tournament sandwich, but you can make it at home in minutes for lunch while you’re watching, or serve it to guests if you’re hosting a watch party.”

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I learned something very helpful today concerning Sour Cherries.

Last season I was LAZY and after pitting cherries and making ONE pie, I put all the rest we harvested on cookie sheets, froze them and them put them in two gallon-sized ziplocks...and promptly forgot about them! I only have one mature tree and one coming up behind. 'North Star' is the sour cherry variety.

In my quest to clean out all I can in the freezers before Stew The Steer goes to 'The Spa' and needs a place to land in neat packages, I thawed out a bag of the cherries today and spent a good 2 hours pitting them. I did this over a bowl in the sink to make sure I saved the juice, too.

They were super easy to pit this way! Didn't need a knife - just a thumbnail, and as an Added Bonus they did not leave ANY stains on my hands, nails or counter tops - though I did have kitchen towels down to catch any drips. Pitting freshly picked cherries is a mess for your hands...and everything else!

So I have 2 Cups+ of cherries which I am making into freezer jam and a QUART of juice that I'll add a little sugar to and we'll have as a treat at breakfast instead of our usual Sunny D or V-8 juice. :)

Also - of that entire bag I only found three Cherry Maggots and that is HUGE since I don't spray my fruit trees. Even though they are added protein, they went down the sink. ;)

[Paul R.]

Noted! The forced yellow daffodils in small pots @ our Menards were also labelled “Narcissus” on the factory labels, so, I might try a couple. For $1, it’s a low cost experiment. :-)