Somehow I completely skipped over planting in February.

If you look at my garden right now — you’d see that I’ve forgotten about planting pretty much altogether. My daikons have bolted, my peas are in a sad state of affairs, my soaker hoses have holes and yet my weeds are running over.

March is going to be a warmer — and perhaps, a time of garden renewal.

If I do decide to get my act together and get planting, here’s what I’d start with:

• Snap beans
• Melons
• Pumpkins
• Squash
• Sunflowers

Buy some seeds from my Amazon.com store  >>

Salad table.

Beginning beets.

- Basil
- Beets
- Bok Choy (as a transplant)
- Carrot
- Cilantro
- Collards
- Eggplant
- Kale
- Lettuce
- Peas
- Radish
- Scallions
- Spinach
- Tomato
- Turnip

Desert planting calendar >>

Last year at this time I had carrots, radishes, beets and brussel sprouts, and spinach all growing away in the garden. Currently, I have a few radish sprouts — and a lot of barren garden awaiting some veggies.

While I prefer to grow from seed, I picked up a few snap peas at Baker’s Nursery the other day so I’d have something.

I consulted a planting calendar, and there’s still have time to plant carrots, beets, turnips and a few greens.

Hopefully it won’t be a sad, sad, veggie-less spring.

I went a saw some real-life chicken habitats at this year’s Tour de Coops and wrote about it in Chow Bella. Take a look!

I’d read online that when the plant died, the potatoes were ready to dig up.

So I waited.

The plant thrived.

A friend suggested that instead of potatoes, maybe the top of the plant was all that was growing. Possibly.

I waited some more.

Then over the weekend, the plant froze and I dug it up and found….

A lot of potatoes.

Digging them up was like a treasure hunt. Some looked frightening, some looked delicious, but regardless — I’d say my sweet potato planting was a success!

The plant was small, and the prognosis for lots of giant tomatoes — well, it was questionable. But now, several months later, I have one giant tomato, and several more on the way. Plus, the top is filled with cilantro.

I think I can officially call project upside-down tomato — a success!

It’s been about 2 months since I stumbled upon the mystery melon in my garden, which I figured was plenty of time to mature and ripen.

Sure enough, upon slicing, it was red — and tasted pretty good.

Hooray for the mystery melon!

There are still 2 more in the garden. Here’s to hoping they are also edible.

I looked on eHow about harvesting watermelon and the first suggestion, “Check out the description on your watermelon’s seed packet.”

My watermelon spontaneously generated. That advice won’t help me.

Another tip: look at curly tendrils around the stem. Green tendrils mean it’s still ripening. Brown and dry equals a done melon. I don’t seem to have any tendrils.

Next tests: The thumbnail test (if your thumb fails to indent the skin, it’s ready) and the underbelly test (warm, yellow hue equals ripe melon).

Anyone know when a watermelon is ready?

My garden is still full of watermelons and black-eyed peas, but that isn’t preventing me from planting a few things for fall.

This season, I’m trying something different: planting seeds in small containers and transplanting them into the garden once they’ve sprouted. To start, I mixed compost (from Whole Foods, I’m still having compost issues), potting soil, peet moss and humate and then filled a bunch of plastic squares you get from the nursery.

So far, I’ve planted:

• Daikon
• Spinach
• Bok Choy
• Carrots
• Peas

Coming up:

• Beets

We’ll see how this garden test goes.

I recently celebrated a birthday and my friends got me the coolest garden sculpture ever.