Gardeners Checklist: Here's What to Do the First Week of 2024

By Ron Kujawski

• Get out of the rut. Include at least one new variety of flower and vegetable as you compile your list of seed purchases for 2024. You may find one that’ll outperform your past favorites.

• Sketch a planting scheme for this year’s vegetable garden. Keep in mind that rotating the location of crops of the different vegetable families from year to year can help reduce pest and disease problems. For example, plant any crop of the cabbage family (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts) in a different location from last year. Likewise, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and eggplant should be planted in a different spot. Any crop within a given vegetable family should not be planted in the same place for at least three years. That’s why you need a planting plan – so you don’t forget past planting locations.

• Apply an anti-desiccant to the leaves of rhododendron, holly and other broadleaf evergreens during the next stretch of warm (above freezing) weather if none was applied in December. If an application was made in December, a second application is not usually made until late February or early March. Before using, be sure to read the product label!!

• Try some of these home remedies to keep deer from dining on your ornamental trees and shrubs. Hang bars of scented soap, bags of hair, or strips of scented dryer sheets from the branches of your plants.  I can’t guarantee these will work for you but I have had good results.

• Repot houseplants that are pot bound. Slow draining after watering is a sign of a pot bound plant, or of one in which the soil has become compacted.

Did you know?

A shot of booze will stunt the growth of paperwhite narcissus and keep the foliage from flopping, a common problem with paperwhites that are forced indoors at this time of year. Please note that the shot of booze is intended for the bulbs not the grower. In a study conducted at Cornell University, it was found that a solution of one part gin, vodka, or whiskey and seven parts of water would reduce the length of paperwhite foliage by one third to one half of its normal length and thus prevent flopping. Teetotalers can substitute rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol for the hard liquor by mixing one part alcohol and ten parts of water. Normally, bulbs of paperwhite narcissus are forced by placing the bulbs on stones or gravel in shallow bowls or pots and then adding water, with the water just touching the bottom of the bulbs. Once it becomes clear that the bulbs have begun to form roots, siphon off any water in the bowl and pour in the alcohol solution, being careful to keep the solution just below the bottom of the bulbs. Use the same solution for additional watering as the leafy shoots develop.  Why does this treatment stunt the growth of the foliage?  Apparently, the alcohol solution reduces water pressure within the plant cells and reduces their normal amount of stretching. Hmmm, I wonder if that’s what happened to my Uncle Shorty?

Ron Kujawski began gardening at an early age on his family's onion farm in upstate New York. Although now retired, he spent most of his career teaching at the UMass Extension Service. He serves on Berkshire Botanical Garden’s Horticulture Advisory Committee. His book, Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook, is available here.