Even if the temperatures weren’t warming up, I would know that vegetable gardening season was just around the bend. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve started receiving e-mails from folks with questions about which seeds to plant and when to plant them.

Forget the crocuses, these e-mails are the first sign of spring.

Vegetable gardeners probably deserve a species all their own. We tend to have a more highly developed biological clock than regular humans. When the calendar page flips to February, we start to develop a peculiar kind of cabin fever. We start watching the weather forecast with more than the usual degree of interest, looking for some sign that maybe this year we can start gardening just a little bit earlier.

All of this happens before the buds have turned to leaves or the earliest bulbs have produced flowers. In fact, I’ve spent many a late winter/early spring day huddled indoors, plotting my garden on graph paper and fantasizing about the lush tomato plants and sturdy corn that I will be tending in June.

To nongardeners, this probably seems like an unhealthy obsession, but the time isn’t wasted. I’ve learned through the years that a bit of advanced planning makes better use of the garden space. There’s nothing more disheartening than running out of room when you’re setting out plants or drawing furrows for all the seed you’ve bought.

The late winter/early spring is also the time to think about trying something new. Even if you’re not comfortable completely reinventing your garden, this may be a good year to do something differently. It doesn’t have to be anything drastic. For example, instead of planting the entire garden in rows, perhaps you could take one crop and experiment with the square-foot method.

This period of waiting is also an opportunity to finish up reading that gets neglected during the warm-weather months. Use this time to bone up on soil and fertilizer issues, for example. In conversations with gardeners, it becomes apparent that some of the most innovative approaches to watering and soil amending have emerged from daydreaming and armchair research in the off-season.

If you’re a gardener who starts seeds, those plants that will go into the ground in late April need to be started now. This would include tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. This is an easy way to get a little bit of dirt under your nails now — sort of a preliminary warm-up, if you will.

I once started almost all of my own plants out of necessity, but through the years the inventory at local greenhouses has improved to such an extent that a good assortment of the standard vegetable varieties is available, as well as a reasonable selection of European, Asian and heirloom vegetables. For example, 10 years ago, I was not able to grow the French tomato Dona unless I started it from seed; now I can buy nice plants from several greenhouses. I also used to start all of my potted herbs from seed but now can find plants of all but the most unusual varieties.

These final weeks before the gardening season gets under way also are a good time to check out the tiller and take stock of the tools and the hoses. Retailers typically put some garden implements on sale in the early season, so watch for the ads.

Although the greatest satisfactions of vegetable gardening are still months away, I’ve always thought the single most pleasurable experience belongs to March. That is the moment when the freshly tilled soil, warmed by the sun to about 60 degrees, first emits the musky aroma that says spring is finally here. In that moment, I know the wait was worth it.