Getting Prepared for Spring

[kevinkimers]

In most areas it is just about that time of year when we should begin our preparations for our spring gardening. Preparing your garden for the planting can be a lot of hard and long work.... why not save yourself some time and trouble. Here are a few tips I suggest that may make your job a little easier. I am using vegetable gardens as my main focus, but these ideas work for any garden. Even cactus.

Just because it is still winter does not mean you can not start working on your garden. Clear away the snow and till your soil adding the mulch and/or fertilizer of your choice to the soil tilling it in. This will allow your soil to absorb the nutrients before it is time to plant. Till the soil ever 2 to 4 days to keep it loose and mixed. My mother also used to by nutrient enriched top soil and till it in too. My mother was the greatest gardener I have ever seen... and I am not being bias. I have seen this woman take a dead plant and bring it back to life on many occasions.

Pre-spring clean your tools and shed. When it is time to begin planting the last thing you want to do is have to deal with your tools and shed. So do it now, it will save your time and effort later. If you tool shed is not organized, organize it. Make it easier for you to find things. You can create pegs on the walls to hang your tools with by just buying a bunch of nails. They are very cheap. Put two nails in the wall about the width of two or three fingers apart and put your tool in-between to hang on the wall. That simple.

Map out your garden. Funny as it sounds, this is always a good idea for two reasons. One, you can make for sure that you do not plant plants close together that can cause problems for one another. For instance, you do not want to plant corn next to tomatoes. The corn will place the tomatoes in the shade and so they will not get the right about of sunlight to produce health tomatoes. Creating a map of your garden allows you ahead of time to determine the proper placement of each plant. The second reason is because you may forget where you planted things or if you mark them out, something could happen to the markers. Different plants need different levels of water then others. Some plants look very much alike. By creating a garden map you are insuring that no matter what you know which plants are where and so you eliminate the probability of mistakes.

There are more things you can do to prepare, but these are all that I can think of at the moment. Does anyone else have more suggestions?

 

[Pat]

I have to take inventory of my tools. I remember saying to myself last year that one tool would need to be replaced for next spring planting. I am sure there are more and I think some have been loaned out and not returned.

 

[marlingardener]

Pat, never, never loan out garden tools! Children, cars, pets--yes, but not garden tools!
You got me inspired--I'll go to the barn, haul out all our tools and start sharpening blades and oiling handles. Do you like fiberglass handles on tools? I find wood much more hand-friendly, but then I rarely wear gloves. Which reminds me, I need to get new gardening gloves.

 

[Smartmom]

My husband is a landscaper so we have every tool that a person can name. We have hand held garden tools and the big tillers. My husband even uses tractors. I mean we have had gardens so big that we sold vegetables and helped a lot of our friends and family members during hard times. I honestly don't understand why some do not grow gardens but they are having financial problems. I have learned that they will eat from ours but do nothing with their land.