I know the groundhog said that we will have an early spring but we still have frost and freezes in a normal Georgia spring.
Go ahead and get the row covers ready because it looks like we may have a roller coaster ride ahead of us. In middle Georgia we normally begin our fertilization program around Valentine’s Day. Holidays are easy days to remember and gives us a reminder that we forgot to buy flowers once again.
If we continue with warmer than average temperatures we should begin to see more blooms than we want to this time of year. Because most varieties have a limited number of flowers each year we may need to consider frost/freeze protection even now.
We could warm up and then cool down to normal temperatures for a few more weeks and have a normal season. However, in 19 years I have not seen anything normal. I would just be getting ready to start pulling covers on. I hope that after this week we can get back to more normal temperatures and wait to start harvesting Strawberries until April rather than March.
We will keep you posted with updates as they come in for rapid changes in the weather. Mark Hoffman with NC State University sends our regular updates as colder temperatures are coming so we should be able to stay ahead of any cold events that could damage flowers, fruit and our bottom line.
