The early spring garden

Now is the time to prep your garden and plant early spring veggies.

The weather here in Charlottesville has been glorious lately.  After such a long, snowy winter, the sunshine and warmer temps have people rushing to get into their gardens, myself included.  After having not been in my garden since November, I am impatient to start digging, raking, planting, and more.

[And can I just mention here how thrilling it has been to walk out to the herb garden without wearing snow boots?!]

Last weekend, I went out and took care of general cleaning up — raking the last of the leaves from the fall, picking up sticks, cleaning out the kitchen garden and flower beds, and so forth.  I also thoroughly turned the compost bins, which desperately needed it after two months of only minimal attention.

After that, I started planting — spinach, carrots, and peas, with lettuce, potatoes, and more to follow soon.  This was a first-wave planting; in two weeks I’ll get out there and plant again, so as to spread out my harvests.  I can already taste the fresh salads, fresh peas with butter, and lightly steamed asparagus.

If you are planning to have spring veggies, now is the time to plant.  Here’s what you need to do:

The cultivator -- my favorite new garden tool.First, you need to work the soil a bit. I prefer to use a manual cultivator (see photo at right), but rakes and shovels do the job just as well.

• First, work the soil a bit to aerate it and get it loose enough to plant in.  I prefer to use a manual cultivator, like the one pictured to the right, but shovels and cultivating forks or even pitchforks do the job nicely too.  (I don’t use a rototiller since they upset the delicate balance of the soil.)
• Next, while you’re working the soil, weed, weed, and then weed more.  Now is the time to get out the stuff that’s not supposed to be there or else you’ll be fighting the weeds all summer.
• Then, if you’re going to use soaker hoses to irrigate your garden, lay them out before planting, so that you don’t have to disturb the plants later on.  I use landscaping staples to keep my hoses in place.
• After you’ve done all that, it’s time to plant.  Spinach, lettuce, and other greens are easy to plant from seed.  You pretty much just plant them and walk away until it’s time to harvest.  I’m trying carrots from seed for the first time this year, so can’t tell you how well they’ll do.  I usually plant broccoli and cauliflower from seedlings, not seeds.
• Finally, after you plant, mulch.  This is a critical step that should not be skipped.  Mulching keeps out weeds, but also serves the dual purpose of keeping seeds and seedlings warm this time of year and then keeping plant roots cool and moist later on in the summer.

If you plant seedlings, make sure you protect them on the colder nights when the temps are around freezing.  Row covers or even plastic gallon milk jugs with the bottoms cut off should do the trick.

If all this seems like a lot, break your projects into smaller, more manageable chunks.  My kitchen garden is divided into eight sections and, so far, I’ve only cultivated, weeded, planted, and mulched three of them.

If you need advice on specific things that you want to grow, I suggest you check out Organic Gardening’s website, which is always my go-to source when I have a question.

And just remember, all this work now leads to fresh veggies later!

Photo credits: gardenaction.co.uk, lowes.com.

Tagged as: kitchen garden