Living Well

Five Tips For Prepping Your Garden For Spring

With spring right around the corner, I am ready for my garden to be filled with color and fragrance.

 

Before I go any further, let me assure you that I am no expert when it comes to gardening. I have been doing my homework, though, as I am trying to learn more about what I can do now to make it as pretty as it can be.

 

Below is a picture of my garden last spring.   It’s this time of year mine looks the best, and while I love it, life gets in the way so I do not always nurture it as I should.

 

Dana Wolter Interiors Blog | Thoughts, Tips, and Trends for Today's Design Dana Wolter Interiors
My garden last year. Image from Dana Wolter Interiors

 

I am trying to do better, hence the reading and researching.   Here are a few tips that stood out to me that I thought might be helpful to you as well:

 

1. Create a composting area

This is something I really want to begin doing.    The compost can be a ready-made compost bin or we can build a compost bin using spare bits of wood. Not only will we have somewhere to put  garden waste, but the plants will benefit from the rich compost created when it all breaks down! Make sure you have a good mixture of grass clippings, vegetable peelings, paper and woody prunings. To help the process along, we will have to turn the compost with a garden fork each month to keep it aerated.

 

How To Start a Compost Heap ~ it's really easy, affordable, useful, and sustainable.  Composting recycles kitchen and yard waste, diverting up to 30% from the trash and consequently reducing landfill waste. Compost adds nutrients and introduces beneficial organisms to the soil, and helps promote plant growth.
Image from apartmenttherapy.com

 

2. Prep the beds.
Remove winter mulch, leaves and any other debris from your beds. Cut back the old dead growth of deciduous grasses and perennials to make room for the new growth. Any weeds that appear in your garden will be easiest to pull now, as the roots are shallow.  I have done this and am making one more go around this weekend.

 

Gardening Tips for beginners
Image from grit.com

 

3. Fertilize the soil

Now’s the time to make sure your soil is properly balanced and ready for new plants. Once the beds are all cleaned out, it’s time to till the ground. This will help aerate and loosen up soil that has compacted over the winter, which will encourage the soil to absorb nutrients better. It will also make it easier to plant.

 

4. Prune

It’s time to prune back tree or shrub branches have been damaged by the cold, snow, and wind. Make sure to do so before buds begin to break into bloom or you’ll stress the tree and get a tiny crop, if any. Use a handsaw for any tree or hedge larger than ½ inch in diameter. Shaping hedges with hand pruners, rather than electric shears, prevents a thick outer layer of growth that keeps sunlight and air from reaching the shrub’s center.

 

veggie garden with formal hedge edges
Image from paradiseexpress.blogspot.com

 

5. Order bulbs and seeds

Decide now what flowers and plants you want in your summer garden. Order the seeds or the bulbs from a local plant shop like my local favorite Leaf and Petal or online. Hold onto the seeds and bulbs until the warmer weather arrives, but make sure that the seeds and bulbs will not deteriorate or lose quality if they sit for some time.

 

flower garden
Image from howardrice.co.uk

 

 

Let me know how it goes for you, and if my efforts pay off, I will share my progress as well.

 

Happy Gardening,

dana

 

PS If anyone feels extra inspired and wants to come to use these tips on my garden, I will happily welcome you, and I know my garden will too.

 

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