Now that your seeds have sprouted and are actually starting to look like plants, what do you do?Indoor seedlings can be very temperamental.  They need lots of light, or they'll grow wispy and weak.  Move them as close to your light source as possible and leave artificial plant lights on for at least 12 hours a day.

They'll need more and more water, as their roots fill out the small cell packs and pots.  You may need to move them up to a larger size pot, before you can move them outdoors.  That's the most frustrating time for me, because the larger pots take up a lot more space.  But doing this makes the plants stronger and better able to acclimate, when you do move them out.

And finally, there's the question of when do you start feeding your seedlings.  If  you used a potting soil that already has fertilizer in it, you shouldn't need to add more. But if you used a traditional soil less mix without fertilizer, you'll need to keep watch for when your seedlings develop their first true leaves, like the tomato seedling here. That's when you need to know how much to feed them and with what?

Photo: © Marie Iannotti

I can remember planting peas on St. Patrick's Day only once, in all my years of gardening. I was pushing my luck then and the peas I planted later in the season quickly caught up to the early peas. The only thing I accomplished was the satisfaction of finally getting something planted in the garden. Although planting your peas on St. Pat's Day is a time honored tradition, for many of us the ground is still too cold and wet to successfully start them (if you can see the soil at all).

However I do like the idea of tying yearly chores to holidays: pruning the apple trees on Washington's Birthday, feeding the lawn after Labor Day, pinching fall flowers until July 4th. It's a great gimmick to keep you on schedule. Too bad all I can do on St. Pat's is make sure I have my pea seeds ready to go. I hope you're one of the lucky ones who will be out there planting yours.

If you are an early pea planter, do you recommend the use of inoculant, a powder containing millions of rhizobia bacteria that help legumes fix nitrogen, especially in cool, wet soils?

Photo: © National Gardening Bureau. Used with Permission.

This past weekend I wrote that the National Garden Bureau (NGB) had declared 2010 The Year of the Marigold. The NGB also picks a vegetable of the year and this year is The Year of the Squash. That's a lot of vegetable, although we tend to only eat a few of them.

Squash is usually divided into summer and winter varieties. These are arbitrary distinctions and there's a lot of overlap, so don't pay the catagories too much attention. The big difference is that so called summer squash doesn't store well and needs to be eaten shortly after harvest. Both types are grown in the summer, but winter squash can be stored and enjoyed well into the winter. Winter squash also tends to have a heavier, creamy consistancy that's very satisfying during the cold winter months.

While you're planning your vegetable garden, consider planting a few different types of squash. I know we don't all have unlimited space in our vegetable gardens and squash vines can sprawl. However there are many new squash varieties that grow as semi-bush forms, allowing you to enjoy experimenting with squash without giving up your whole garden.

• Growing Summer Squash
• Growing Winter Squash
• Winter Squash Varieties

Photo Courtesy of the National Garden Bureau (http://www.ngb.org/index.cfm)

Every time I hear it's sugaring time - time to collect maple sugar and boil it down to syrup - I think of that old episode of I Love Lucy, when Lucy steals the answers before appearing on a game show and then mixes them up. The question was "What is a senator's term of office?", and Lucy answers, "The sap runs every 2 years".

We'll, it's sugaring time in many parts of the country and it's no laughing matter. There's a limited window of opportunity to get your tree tapped and the sap flowing. When the temperature rises above the freezing point, the pressure changes inside the tree's tissues, forcing sap out of storage and into the tree's vascular system - its plumping, so to speak. Small Farms Guide, Lauren Ware, say it's not that hard to do and sugaring on a small scale is a great way to welcome spring. My old sugar maple used to drip on its own. If you'd like to give it a try, here are Lauren's tips for walking you through the process.

Photo: Tim Boyle / Getty Images News