10 Ways to Nurture Your Garden in the Spring
https://www.azurestandard.com/healthy-living/10-ways-to-nurture-your-spring-garden/
Getting off to a good start early in the growing season is key to havin... View More10 Ways to Nurture Your Garden in the Spring
https://www.azurestandard.com/healthy-living/10-ways-to-nurture-your-spring-garden/
Getting off to a good start early in the growing season is key to having a productive and beautiful garden.
With an average last frost date of May 15 in my gardening zone, 5B, May and June are the critical months. I know from experience that if I take the time to properly nurture my newly planted garden early in the season, the rewards will be immeasurable — high yields and beautiful flowers.
If I don’t properly nurture my garden in the beginning, it becomes a huge mess of weeds, yield is poor, and gardening becomes a burdensome chore instead of something I look forward to.
Over the last 10 years, I’ve learned a few tips and tricks to get my garden off to the best possible start. Here’s what I’ve learned through a lot of trial and error:
1. Check your soil and amend as necessary.
To give your garden the best chance of producing well, you need healthy soil enriched with lots of compost and organic matter. It’s also helpful to have your soil tested every few years to determine what, if any, amendments you might add for productive and healthy soil. Luckily, it’s not hard to test your soil and state university extension offices often offer soil testing kits to help you with the process.
While the optimum time to test soil is in the fall, it’s also possible to test it in the spring before you plant your garden. Oregon State University offers more information on testing soil in Oregon, and since I live in Iowa, I use the Iowa State Extension Program. If you live in another state, you can Google your state name and soil testing for instructions specific to your area.
2. Watch the weather!
A newly planted garden needs the right weather conditions to get off to the best start. I start watching the weather forecast a few weeks before my area’s last anticipated frost date. If warm, frost-free weather is forecast, I might get a jump start and plant seeds and seedlings earlier than normal. Conversely, if it’s cold and nasty outside, I will delay planting. I also keep a close watch on the low temperatures for most of the month of May after planning my seedlings. While our last average frost date is May 15, we had a hard frost on May 18 just last year. If I hadn’t watched the weather and covered my plants well that night, I would have lost quite a few baby seedlings.
Keep your eye on the weather so you can take preventative action to keep your garden safe, especially early in the growing season.
3. Mulch is your friend.
Not only can mulch help keep weeds down to save you a lot of unnecessary weeding, it also keeps pests to a minimum and helps your plants maintain the right moisture content. Mulching from the beginning will really help your garden thrive. Immediately after planting seedlings, I try to add a nice layer of protective mulch. If I delay adding mulch I might not get back around to it until I have weed, moisture, or pest problems. I could have avoided those pests had I been proactive from the beginning.
4. Visit your garden early and often.
My dad and gardening mentor has always told me that the gardener’s shadow is one of the most important garden tools. By visiting the garden often, it’s easier to spot pests before they become a big problem, pull out weeds when they’re still tiny, and make sure your plants have enough water. I try to walk through my garden every single day, even if I don’t really have a lot of time, as it’s a peaceful and serene place. I enjoy touching my plants and even talking to them. Not only is it good for the garden to be there often, it’s also good for the soul.
5. Plant for pollinators.
Encouraging bees, birds, and butterflies to visit your garden is good for everyone. They pollinate your plants, eat pests, and are a lot of fun to watch. I really enjoy photographing bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies in my garden and love to encourage them to visit by planting flowers and herbs I know they will like. Make sure to add a few native flowers and delicious herbs to your garden to enjoy visits by bees, birds and butterflies.
6. Learn about companion planting.
The herbs and flowers that encourage pollinators are also often great for deterring pests. I have a big problem with cucumber beetles in my garden, for instance, and lost my entire cucurbit crop several years in a row to them. When I learned that radishes are useful for deterring my dreaded foe, I started planting radishes like crazy. I don’t enjoy eating as many as I plant, but I love that they are quite effective at keeping cucumber beetles away. I was also delighted to learn that radishes are lovely when allowed to flower, and the pods they produce are edible!
Three Sisters Gardens (combining corn, beans, and squash) are another fantastic way to try companion planting. In my area of Eastern Iowa, the Native Americans used to grow huge Three Sisters Gardens along the Mississippi River to feed large populations of more than 5,000 people! The beans use the corn stalks as support poles and supply needed nitrogen to the soil, the vining pumpkins grow around the corn and beans and keep weeds down and discourage predators. At the end of the growing season, the crop residue can be incorporated back into the soil to increase organic matter.
I grew my first Three Sisters Garden last year and really enjoyed watching the three plant varieties work in tandem and am excited to grow another one this year. It’s amazing that primitive and simple ideas are often the most sustainable and healthy. David Knaus, Azure’s Greenhouse Manager, put together a great companion planting guide.
7. Keep a garden notebook.
Keeping track of dates, yields, varieties, garden plans, and weather is a fun way to reflect on what worked and didn’t work, what you liked and didn’t like, and what was too much work, or tasted bad. I know from experience that unless I write details down, I will absolutely forget them. Keeping a garden notebook is a fabulous tool to help you get the most out of your garden and is a lot of fun to look through in the winter when you’re dreaming and planning the next new garden. Again, make sure to write down all details, even the ones that may seem insignificant!
Last year, I didn’t write down which tomatoes I planted where because I knew I could remember. Well, guess what? I forgot. And it took me a while to realize that the green tomatoes that wouldn’t turn red were actually supposed to be eaten green!
8. Involve your kids, if you have them.
Not only can kids be a lot of help in the garden, but they also motivate me to try new things and plant fun crops as well. My kids love to help me pick and plant. They enjoy looking through seed catalogs and asking for all the gourds and pumpkins in existence. And they’re often more interested in eating veggies they’ve helped grow. Kids in the garden are a huge win in my book.
9. Don’t get stuck in a rut!
Trying new things keeps me excited and motivated in my garden. I love experimenting with new-to-me plant varieties. They don’t always turn out how I expected, and many don’t make a repeat appearance in my garden the next year, but I really enjoy planting new things and seeing how they grow. This year, I’m excited about several new-to-me tomatoes and purple sweet potatoes! I can’t wait to see how they perform and track their progress in my garden notebook.
10. Finally, keep animals (rabbits, chickens, dogs, deer, raccoons) out!
If you have destructive animals in your area, make sure you put up a fence to keep them out. I don’t like to fence my garden because I don’t have a problem with deer or rabbits, but I have to fence now because of my beloved chickens! It’s most important to keep them out in the early season to protect my seeds and baby seedlings. While chickens are great for gobbling up unwanted bugs later in the season, they wreak total havoc on the early garden by scratching up seeds and destroying new seedlings. I like to let my chickens in my garden later in the summer, but in the beginning, I have to put up chicken fence to keep them out if I don’t want my garden to be destroyed.
These tips have been key for keeping me motivated and on the right track in my own garden. I hope they’re useful to you, too. Happy gardening!
Thanks for the invite Faye.
Thanks Faye for the invite, my baby Corgi did a number on my garden in the back yard.
Thanks Faye Grimm for the invite
I am so excited .. my daffodils and irises are coming up.
We had a great tomato crop this year. Our fave was Ox heart. It's a very tasty 'meaty' inner fruit, not too juicy and drippy, great on sandwiches.
Been raining on and off for a about 10 days now so I... View MoreWe had a great tomato crop this year. Our fave was Ox heart. It's a very tasty 'meaty' inner fruit, not too juicy and drippy, great on sandwiches.
Been raining on and off for a about 10 days now so I went and picked the vines clean and only a few had begun to split from the rain but not those ox hearts by golly! I picked 2 boxes and 3 giant mixing bowls of the varieties - 4-5 kinds of cherries, 3 medium and we had 3 plants with huge fruits. My guestimate: Just today's harvest there perhaps 60 lobs of tomatoes, give or take. Took 3 trips to bring them inside.
WOO HOO! Now of course, we gotta do stuff with/to them.
This site has a lot of good info besides this article. Check it out.
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