The slush and ice storm that recently heaped inconvenience upon northeast Kansas was not all bad. For people who were shut out of work and school or went without power for several days, this statement will be hard to swallow, but for people who grow stuff it will make perfect sense.

For farmers and gardeners, the ice storm brought several benefits with it. Ice is, after all, precipitation. While farmers and gardeners would join the rest of humanity in wishing for a less solid, less destructive form of precipitation, what fell on northeast Kansas and accumulated on tree branches was rain something we’ve seen precious little of for several months.

Officially, we got something less than 2 inches of precipitation during the storm, enough to bring us in line with year-to-date averages and put moisture back into the soil. Snow generally accounts for the precipitation in the first couple of months of the year, and prior to the ice storm we had received little more than flurries this winter, which compounded the effects of a relatively dry autumn.

A precipitous issue

In rural areas, where we do not have the ambient heat produced by pavement and buildings, the ice has melted slowly. For growers, this also is good, because water has soaked into the soil, producing no runoff. The winds that blew in last week may have caused some additional evaporation, but very little of this precipitation has gone to waste.

Precipitation in February may seem like a nonissue to people who don’t plan their lives around planting dates. However, for farmers who overwinter their wheat and gardeners who plant early vegetables such as potatoes, cole crops, carrots and greens this is significant.

Prior to the ice storm, soil in gardens and fields was going through a dry winter. On one of the lovely 60-degree days in January, I took the tiller for a spin and was struck by how dry the garden soil was. Ordinarily, I can churn up moist, black dirt about 6 inches down, but not that time. My tiller was working overtime.

If the weather cooperates and gives us a couple of warm days during the next month, we can begin working our garden soil again. Soil should not be turned when it is damp enough to squeeze into a ball. Once it dries beyond that point and easily slides through your fingers, the soil will benefit from the aeration that occurs when it is tilled by machine or fork.

Breathe life into your soil

Even if you don’t intend to plant a thing until you set out tomato plants in May, tilling your garden in late winter or early spring is a good practice. Air circulation in the soil breathes life into it; microorganisms that have been in hibernation all winter suddenly snap to attention and, when spring rains do come, earthworms will find your tilled soil more inviting.

Contrary to popular belief, earthworms are friend, not foe. They keep your soil loose and put off casings that are marketed as high-priced fertilizer. The demonization of the earthworm is an advertising ploy by the lawn fertilizer people, who have convinced us that any life form is a threat to carpetlike grass. I have yet to encounter a gardener who was so overrun with earthworms that he had crop damage.

If you do plan to start planting in March, you’ll want to work with well-turned, friable soil. A couple of passes through the garden with a tiller, spaced a week or so apart, is ideal. Then, by the middle of next month provided the threat of hard freezes has passed you can begin to put the earliest crops in the ground.

Clarification: In last week’s column, I left a step out of the lasagna recipe. The chunks of beef are to be browned with the sausage and both are to be simmered in the sauce.

When she’s not writing about foods and gardening, Gwyn Mellinger is teaching journalism at Baker University.