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Prepare Your Garden for Spring

It’s finally that time of year! Spring is almost here! It’s time to prepare your garden for another growing season. 

Hopefully, through the winter you’ve been staying on top of things like deadheading and pruning that way you have a head start on cleanup tasks, but if you haven’t now is the time to start!

Remove old flower heads from perennial plants, living weeds, damaged branches, and older mulch and grass clippings. Most of these things can be placed in a compost heap to become incorporated into the soil. If it is already well-composted in place you can use organic matter to work into the soil and increase nutrient levels. You want to expose the soil so you can prepare it for flowers and other plants. 

At this point you can add an organic fertilizer along with the older mulch, working the soil until it’s all mixed in. This will ready the garden bed for spring planting, and giving it the nutrients it needs to support your flowers and vegetables. This will also help to loosen up the soil which is important after being compacted all winter long. While you’re digging up the soil, it’s the perfect time to perform a soil test to see what your pH levels are and whether or not you need to make adjustments. Your local cooperative extension can help with this. 

If you’re going to be using raised bed planters early spring is a good time to purchase soil specifically formulated for raised beds. While it may be too early to plant most crops, being prepared for warmer weather never hurts. If you decide to plant cool weather crops like lettuce, asparagus, and Brussel sprouts, be sure to cover crops with a frost protectant on nights that may still be extremely cold. 

Finally, once you’ve gotten your beds prepared and your garden ready for next month’s planting you can spend some time dividing up perennials—like bearded iris, hostas, and daylilies. These perennials can often begin to crowd each other out over time, causing their blooms to get smaller and more sparse as time goes on. By splitting them you give them more room to grow. The most important thing to remember with splitting plants is that your garden tools must be sterilized with alcohol first. You can spread disease and pests from one plant to another if you don’t keep your tools clean. 

January and February Gardening Tasks

Yes, it’s cold and often grey outside, but that doesn’t mean your garden chores are done for the season! Believe it or not, your garden is still a living and growing thing all through winter. Now that the days are growing longer you’ll have more time to get all of your indoor and outdoor gardening chores done. 

January and February are the months to consider doing a winter prune on your deciduous shrubs and fruit trees, before the buds pop. Trim out anything dead, diseased, or damaged. This will be easier to see now before there are any leaves on the branches. Trees and shrubs left unpruned may have fewer blooms and less growth come spring. Prune roses as well and they’ll reward you with a riot of blooms. 

It’s also a good time for planting early spring bulbs! Yes, it’s true, if you can work the soil it’s not too late to plant spring-flowering plants such as Crocus, Hyacinths, Tulips, Daffodils and more. For summer bulbs you’ll want to take a look at them and make sure none of them are rotted or collapsed. This indicates either disease or a bug infestation, so you’ll want to get rid of those before it spreads to your healthy bulbs.

Examine your perennial plants for frost heaves. This happens when the roots get exposed due to the freezing and thawing cycles of the ground. If you find them make sure the roots are properly buried and consider adding some mulch over the area to prevent future heaves. 

January and February are a good time to plant bare-root hedges, which are cheaper than pot-grown. These should become available toward the end of February, so think about digging your holes now when the ground is softer and easier to work with. 

Sweet Pea is one of the great early crops to start from seed packets at this time. Early January is the best time to do that. Make sure they are in a frost-free area, and they’ll be ready for planting in March or April!

Turn the soil in your vegetable garden. The weather over the next few months will help to break it down and get it ready for planting in spring once the cold weather passes.