Uncertainty is the name of the gardening game in February. Will it be a month of continuing winter, or a glimpse of early spring?

Ever hopeful, I'm looking for ample amounts of usable outdoor time to accomplish much-needed post-winter cleanup and pre-season preparations. I'd love to have all the annual flower and vegetable plots cleaned of fallen debris and dug over this month, and various messes tidied away.

The weather willing, I'll sow broad beans outdoors and make seedings of hardy greens to cover with plastic tunnelling or floating row fabric. My favourites are spinach, corn salad, miner's lettuce, mizuna and arugula. Radish seeds sown between the spinach rows works well for me.

Early in the month, I'll cut down the top growth on the summer-flowering clematis vines. I have several Viticellas and a Texensis - small-flowering vines that are easy, tough and not prone to the diseases that attack their larger-flowered kin.

If the weather is reasonable, I'll wake up the compost heaps by mixing up their contents a little to introduce fresh air and activate them with a little seaweed and/or any chopped, fresh green material and young weeds gathered in the cleanup.

There are pruning projects for later in the month. A large sweet bay shrub (Laurus nobilis) and a laurustinus (Viburnum tinus) need a major cutting back. Almost all the viburnum stems bear flowerbud clusters. They'll provide lightly scented bloom in the house.

There are roses to prune, and a few cuts to make on the apple trees. I do almost all the fruit tree pruning in the summer, to maintain the trees at a manageable size (winter pruning promotes great green growth), to open the plants up to summer sun and good fruit ripening, and as a disease prevention measure.

February is a big indoor seeding month for me, with all the hardy flowers and vegetables for early transplanting to be sown.

New adventures. Each new gardening year brings fresh opportunities to observe and learn. During the fall and winter, I keep pots of basil growing in succession for a continuous supply.

My standard, small-leaved, tight-bush-form basil for pots has been Green Globe. This winter, I decided to compare it with a Johnny's Selected Seeds (JSS; johnnyseeds.com) listing for Pistou, described as "our smallest basil."

From a late November seeding of them both, current differences in the two pots are apparent. Both have formed a typically neat, low dome of fine, pungent foliage, but while the Green Globe is heading up to flower and losing a little colour depth, the Pistou planting remains a robustly deep green and shows no sign of blooming.

I can detect no difference in flavour between them both. The taste, usual for these small basils, is clean and rich. These are the preferred basils for pesto in Italy, and my yearround basil mainstays in containers indoors and out.

A flavour trial. Another listing in the JSS catalogue has inspired a different trial, for the summer garden. Costata Romanesco is an open-pollinated (non-hybrid) zucchini of the ridged, Italian type that is my favourite. It is described as a "Traditional Italian heirloom with the best flavour. This distinctive zucchini is medium grey-green, with pale green flecks and prominent ribs. Big large-leafed bush with only about half the yield of hybrids, but much better tasting; clearly better textured, nutty and delicious, raw or cooked."

I'll be growing Costata Romanesco to compare flavours with the hybrid variety I've been growing. I have to admit that the hybrid pumpkin I grew last year, my best producer, did have rather pallid, bland-tasting flesh. I'm going back to the old reliable, open-pollinated Small Sugar this year and am trying Long Island Cheese, an 1807 heirloom from Seed Savers Exchange.

GARDEN EVENTS

Gordon Head meeting. The Gordon Head Garden Club will meet on Monday at 7: 30 p.m. in the Gordon Head United Church Hall, 4201 Tyndall Ave. Gord Hutchings's talk is titled "Flower designs and how native bees work in concert with them." He will discuss the origins of flowering plants and how their diversity is linked with native bee diversity. Visitors and new members are welcome.

VHS meeting. The Victoria Horticultural Society will meet on Tuesday at 7: 30 p.m. in the Garth Homer Centre, 813 Darwin Ave. Volunteers from the Doris Page Winter Garden at the Horticulture Centre of the Pacific will share the highlights and history of the winter garden, which is now in its 27th year. vichortsociety.org.

hchesnut@bcsupernet.com