February Garden Chores

This week we will be talking about February garden chores that we have to get done in the second month of the year. It was a very fast January, right? In 2021, February was our coldest month and it looks like it will be the coldest month of this year as well.

February Garden Chores
January 31-February 6, 2022

Monday, January 31, 2022 - February Garden Chores

The fish are coming up again to eat as it is not so cold. I think they ate my water lilies. So what February garden chores will you be doing?

It is hard to believe today is the final day of January already. It did not get very cold overnight. It stayed in the 50s and is 58° right now. I have heard we are supposed to have a hard freeze later in the week.

We had quite a few customers today. We continued to restock the store and several of us pulled and filled a whole lot of seed orders through the David's Garden Seeds® website. Of course, we did not fill enough. The mailman did not have enough room in his vehicle to take all of the orders so we rushed some down to the post office. However, it closes at 4pm and the mailman came late so the USPS would not take several large boxes of orders. We will have to take them down to the post office in the morning.

February garden chores won't get done at least this week because the temperatures are ridiculously cold again.

February Garden Chores For Southern Texas

Remember that the February garden chores on this page are for South Central Texas. It will be different in other regions of the country.

If you have rosebushes, prune them and deadhead them.
Start your tomatoes in the greenhouse or indoors on heating mats if you have not done so in January.
Start cantaloupes, cucumbers, kohlrabi, lettuce, pumpkins, watermelons, and zucchini in seed trays or starter pots indoors.
Get your garden beds ready for spring planting. Add compost and till it into the soil.
Do a complete clean out of your chicken house and other animal houses.
Stir your compost piles.

Tuesday, February 1, 2022 - February Garden Chores

Good early Tuesday morning. It is 58° and will hit 76° today. I am a bit chilly in the house. In an hour, David and I will leave for San Antonio as I have a post operative appointment to look at my toe. Then we will go drop off some papers to our accountant. I think we will also stop by Sam's to load up on more drinks and snacks for the Farm Store.

Today, we will have more of our germination mix soil and rabbit pellets in the store. As soon as the guys get here, they can make up bags of it. We have been selling a lot of it as the germination mix is great for starting your seeds and the rabbit poo is great for your garden plants. Come by and get a bag or two for your garden. Mixing in rabbit poo with your garden soil is a good February garden chore.

It is now lunchtime and we are back on the farm. The doctor says I am going to live and we stopped by Sam's to get more drinks and snacks for the store. There is a good supply of rabbit poo for your garden but right now, the germination mix has not yet been put together, but I do have one bag left. I also have three and one half dozen eggs for sale right now.

We continued to stock the store and close orders for the rest of the day. In fact, we are now out of display bags again. We just got 3,000 bags in last week and we cannot find any of them. I thought there were more boxes.

Matthew had to take several boxes of orders to the post office because the mailman does not have room in his vehicle for them.

February Garden Chores For Texas

Today's February garden chores for Texas include stirring your compost pile and deep cleaning your chicken coop if you have one. Get all of the chicken poo over to the compost pile with dirt so the poo can compost. Chicken manure should always be composted before putting it in with your garden soil. If it is not composted, it will burn your plants.

If you have rabbits, mix their poo directly in your garden without being composted. Your garden plants will love rabbit manure. If you are nearby, come to our store and buy two pounds of rabbit manure from our rabbits for just $7.95 a bag. We may not have any available when you visit the store. If we do, it will be outside of the store on the bottom shelves.

If you have farm animals, collect the manure and compost it for your garden as one of your February garden chores.

Wednesday, February 2, 2022 - February Garden Chores

The fog moved in quickly early this morning. For a few minutes once it got light, there was no fog. It got worse over time.

The fog is coming in thicker by the minute. This is the field from the Kitchen balcony.

Good Wednesday morning. It was 57° when I got up. It should be in the 70s today but the fog is moving in quickly. The rain will start this evening and the temperature will drop into the 20s overnight.

Matthew just left (9:30am) for the post office with five big boxes of orders. We are trying to get them out as fast as possible. We know there won't be room for too many orders in the mailman's vehicle. Country mailmen do not have USPS trucks. They have to use their own vehicles for the mail service.

The fog came in fairly thick for a few hours. After that, the sky stayed grey all day long.

Daniel and Austin from Comfort Commander came over this morning to pick up a check for a split air conditioner unit in Jay's building (Production) so it won't be hot in there anymore.

I added some water to the pond so the fish can go down deeper during the cold snap we will be having starting tonight. That water evaporates fast.

Nacho's helper was very fast putting in insulation. Here he is sweeping up some ceiling debris. They put insulation in the top of 3 and a half buildings today.

He is putting the insulation in the ceiling of 3 and a half buildings including the commercial kitchen building.

Nacho and his helper repainted the bathrooms and fixed the thresholds in the farm store. Now they are putting insulation in the Kitchen building which has the bathrooms, David's office, the commercial kitchen, and the break room. For some reason, the ceiling was not insulated.

Here are some panels of the thick insulation for you to see. These buildings do not have the foam spray insulation like my farm store does.

They had to get two loads of insulation and they still need more to finish out the Fulfillment and Production buildings.

Folks are tripping over the poorly constructed threshold in the farm store. The reason is they forget to watch where they are going. Nacho is about to fix the doorways with the planks of wood.

Nacho fixed both the front and side thresholds. It feels better on the feet and hopefully, it will help people not trip now.

Linda cleaned up the grow tower after pulling up all of the lettuce. On Friday, she will plant seven different herbs in it.

Some of the lettuce that grew in our hydroponic grow tower in the farm store. It tasted good and our chickens got some, too. If you have hydroponics, make cleaning it 1 of your February garden chores.

Linda is getting the algae and calcium off of the grow tower in preparation to grow some herbs in the farm store.

Did I mention that we had zero customers today? It was a pretty nice day with a high in the 70s but I expect everyone was thinking about the coming ice storm and buying up all of the milk, bread, and toilet paper at Walmart instead of seed shopping.

The big storm starts this evening with wind and rain. The next three days are supposed to see 20s and warm up to above freezing and then plunge back down.

I made the most delicious pot roast in my Instant Pot this evening. It was so good. I made it with a delicious chuck roast that we got at Sam's on Tuesday. I added mushrooms, potatoes, carrots, celery, onion, and garlic. David rarely compliments my cooking. He told me tonight that it is just like his mama used to make and it is the best roast beef he has tasted in a long time. Wow. He has never said either thing to me before in almost 35 years of marriage. Apparently his mother used to pressure cook her pot roast. Who knew? I always made mine in a crock pot.

I made a delicious chuck roast in my Instant Pot. I haven't used it in a long time but I will start using it again.

The veggies cooked under the meat in the instant pot.

If you don't have an Instant Pot, I highly recommend that you get one. I used to use it a lot when we lived in our San Antonio home but out here, where I have less storage space, I have not used it much. After tonight's accolades, I think I will leave it out and use it more.

Sitting on the couch around 8pm tonight, I kept hearing a strange noise behind me. David told me it was the wind. Sure enough, when I opened the side door, the wind was blowing cold and hard and it was raining. It stopped around 9pm so I let the dogs out. Not too much later, the rain started again.

February Garden Chores

Let's talk about more February garden chores. Depending on your soil, you may want to put in raised garden beds. When we lived in San Antonio, our soil was rocky clay that was almost impossible to till through. The first year, our garden was not much because we broke two tillers trying to get through it so we could plant.

After that, we put in raised garden beds and got beautiful garden soil from a soil company and then we had some really good gardens during the twenty years we lived in San Antonio.

For your February garden chores, if there is no snow on the ground where you are, you should plan and build some raised garden beds. They can be as simple as a rectangle on the ground using planks of wood to hold the dirt or as fancy as you want to make them. David once made a four tiered garden bed with the lowest one to the ground as the biggest. Each additional layer was smaller. We filled it with strawberries and it did very well for several years in our yard in San Antonio. Building it will be one of the good February garden chores your perform.

This is the 4 tier plan for the above mentioned raised garden bed. Make this as one of your February garden chores.

This is David's 4 tier plan for the above mentioned raised garden bed. Make this as one of your February garden chores.

Thursday, February 3, 2022 - February Garden Chores

It is hard to see, but it is raining here on the farm. This photo is taken from the store porch showing the production building and the hay field.

Rain on the store window by the snacks. We are open for business 9am-5pm Mon-Fri and Sat 10am-4pm. Come on over! 5029 FM 2504 near Poteet, TX.

The rain poured most of the night. At 6:05am, I woke up and it was 34°. It is now 33° at 6:30am. I just got back inside with my umbrella after taking all three dogs outside to pee. It is cold and raining and still dark. I hate the idea of my poor animals being outside. Yes, they have shelter, but I know it must be so uncomfortable for them.

It is now 7:40am and I got an email saying my Ring doorbells need recharging. I went out in the cold to unscrew them. It is still pouring and is 34° again. Matt texted and said he is on his way. I am thinking everyone else is, too, since we have not heard from them. Of course, I will need to be in the store today as my helper does not work on Thursdays.

My once every two weeks housekeeper is supposed to come today, although I don't know if she will make it all the way from San Antonio. She texted me last night that she would let me know.

I doubt that any customers will venture out into this wet mess of a day but you never know. Matt just got here and he brought us breakfast from McDonald's. He said the line there was long. Funny how no one wants to make their own breakfast during a cold rain storm!

I just heard from my housekeeper. She said that since there is no ice, she is on her way. Yay!

My brother John wrote my name in the snow they got in El Paso today.

My brother, John, lives in El Paso and said it snowed overnight and he wrote my name in it. It is currently 23° there and much too cold to be out in it. They did not wrap the pipes and they froze so they may experience some bursting pipes.

The housekeeper made it out here. The rain continues to fall. David sent Matt to take our seed orders to the post office because the mailman never has enough room in his vehicle and sometimes he does not show up. We definitely want to do all we can to insure that you get your seed orders as soon as possible.

So far, no customers have come into the store but the weather is cold and wet. The weatherman says that all of the rain will be gone by 2pm and that it will be down to 25° overnight. If you want to come out to the farm store today, we have plenty of seeds and four and a half dozen eggs for your cooking and baking enjoyment.

Stay Home! Icy Roads

Hi Everyone! It is now 2:30pm and the roads are icy now as it is 31° Fahrenheit here in Poteet. We have sent all of our employees home and most have left. Please stay home now until the ice goes away for your safety.

We salted the steps with leftover salt from last February when we had a week of Snowpocalypse. Remember that? How could you forget?

It is now 3pm and 30°. The mailman came and picked up a bunch of your orders and I am filling others. Depending on the weather, we may not have a crew tomorrow because of the icy roads.

I went to collect eggs at 4pm and closed the store. The roads were icy and it was getting colder. I took care of all of the animals and got the eggs. Once I got inside and changed clothes, David called and said a job candidate was coming for an interview. By the time she got here, it was after 5pm. I went out with my heavy hunting jacket and we interviewed the candidate. She is a full time medical assistant who wants some extra work on Saturdays. We need help with pulling orders and stocking the store on Saturdays. So we will try her out this Saturday, although with the cold weather, I don't anticipate a big crowd of customers. It will be 26° when the morning starts on Saturday.

So we went home and it got colder and colder. Around 11pm, David noticed the main greenhouse was down to 36° so he went out to turn up the heat. He said someone unhooked some of his stuff so he had to fix it all up. I don't get. We pay people well to work, to do what we want done, not to unhook, turn off, and unplug things. I get the same thing in my greenhouse and it is supposed to be my own private greenhouse. I just don't get it.

February Garden Chores

We have sold a lot of seeds over the past month. Maybe you still have not ordered your seeds for spring. Last year and in 2020, due to Covid, we sold out of many favorite seed varieties. It looks like this will happen again this year. So, if you haven't already, make sure that one of your February garden chores is to order your garden seeds for spring now. They are going quickly plus we have been having a lot of new visitors in our farm store buying seeds.

We are currently airing a TV ad on MeTV, a radio ad on KSAQ in Pleasanton (with Garrett the embarrassing carrot), and we are running ads on KTSA radio in San Antonio on the weekends with Bob Webster, our local garden guru. We love Bob. The ads are working and are reaching a lot of area folks who have never come to our store before. So, again, make buying your spring garden seeds one of your February garden chores so you can get all of your favorites before they are out.

These ads are bringing in all sorts of customers and we are very happy about it. They are buying up a lot of seeds. We have also had customers drive two to three hours from other parts of Texas to buy our seeds. We are honored and excited to meet them.

Friday, February 4, 2022 - February Garden Chores

We got some new snacks like peanuts, cashews, and jerky. Our employees like them and I know our customers will, too.

More snacks to enjoy. Different cookies and chips & drinks for your visiting enjoyment. Have a picnic out in the gazebo while you look at the fish. Bring trash to me to keep the farm pretty.

It is now 4:31pm and I have spent almost the whole day doing orders and adding product to the website. Linda pulled and closed a lot of orders and then helped over in Fulfillment putting away back stock that they did not get to. Matthew had to take mail to the post office and stuff to UPS for Fulfilled By Amazon as we are sending up a few things again, just not everything like before. It was 26° and is currently up to 44°. The ice is gone, but the wind has really picked up and it feels cold.

To my surprise, we had two separate customers this morning buying seeds, but none this afternoon. Everyone will be off tomorrow except for David and me and the new girl, Esme. We will see how she does. I really don't expect a lot of customers tomorrow because it is so cold now. On Wednesday and on Thursday, we had zero customers.

We did a working lunch because there were so many older orders since we left early yesterday. I believe they are all out now. We had Constantino's Pizza out of Somerset and they make delicious food.

Our bigger shopping bags came in today. The tiny ones came in earlier in the week so we should be good.

Our plastic display bags for the store still have not come in so we cannot hang up anything new.

Matthew has had to take large quantities of seed orders to the post office every day this week because the mailman doesn't have room in his truck.

Saturday, February 5, 2022 - February Garden Chores Did Not Get Done Today

Our flags were blowing in the cold breeze all day long.

Good very cold Saturday. It is 27° and so ridiculously cold. A new team member starts today but she will work on Saturdays only. I started to show her what to do and my first customer showed up. We stayed busy all day long with even more sales than we had last Saturday. David gave a bunch of tours until he could go no further. Then the new girl, Esme, had to take over. She went on the first tour with David. I asked her to go on the second one as well but she would not. I hope she got the gist of it on the first tour so she could tell people correctly. I am not sure why she refused to go on the second tour.

The mailman came and took two large bags of mail orders with him.

Esme pulled a lot of orders which I checked. I did not have time to close them because I was so busy with customers. Unfortunately, I was so busy that I did not have time to figure out what else she should do when she was just sitting there. We needed another person to train her while I dealt with customers. Overwhelmingly, all but three customers today saw our TV commercial. One found us on a Facebook group, one googled us, and one heard us on KTSA on the Bob Webster show. Thankfully, none of them found us through the embarrassing Garrett the carrot commercial on the radio in Pleasanton.

At 4:00pm, I noticed that there was a truck at the closed gate but we were closed and the store was already locked up. I let out the last two customers and Esme at 4:10pm and I went to collect eggs. My feet hurt again. Handling this many customers by myself and trying to train someone was just too much. I thought we would hire someone new who would work during the week and on Saturdays so we could train her before Saturday.What I really need is someone who can work on Thursdays when Linda, my assistant, is out and on Saturdays.

David called for one of our Poteet team members to come water the plants in the greenhouse because he did not water them yesterday so he was here after hours.

We had Subway sandwiches during Svengoolie tonight.

The sun is going down and my porch lights came on. It is cold once again.

Sunday, February 6, 2022 - No February Garden Chores Today

The neighboring cows greeted me this morning when I unlocked the buildings. Aren't they pretty? It was too cold to do any February garden chores this entire week.

Happy cold Sunday. The temperature started again at 27°. I made breakfast and finally went outside to feed all of the animals. The air was so cold. Then we got ready for church which, starting today, is meeting in a VFW building. Eleven months ago, they started this church but we started going in October, I believe. The VFW building was freezing cold. The heater was not kept on overnight so they started from scratch when they were let in this morning. The chair was like a giant ice cube, but at least it was comfortable in comparison to the chairs we sat in at the last building. I had a jacket on but I should have brought a heavy coat and a blanket. I froze the whole time and it felt like cold air was blowing out of the vents.

After that frozen time of worship, we went shopping for groceries at Walmart. We are having a working lunch tomorrow so we picked up stuff for a charcuterie board for everyone. We are swamped with orders. We came home and David put a turkey in the oven to roast so it smells good in here. It is 3pm and 60° outside. My leg hurts from sitting in that cold place this morning. Had I known how it would be, yes, I would have shown up with a blanket.

I have a lot of computer work to do today because I was so busy all week long with orders.

It is now 7:50pm and I just got back from helping David with seed inventory. Now I have to do social media posts for the upcoming week. The fun never ends at David's Garden Seeds®! Hope you all have a good night!

Return from February Garden Chores to Business Growth

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