How to Plan and Prepare Your Springtime Garden

Your gardening duties are not over once the cold winter temperatures arrive. Start your preparations by planning, on paper or by using planning software on your computer, for your next spring vegetable garden. Did you have a plan from last year? If you did, it’s time to consider rotating your vegetables. Ask yourself these questions:

1. As you plan, are you going to plant any vegetable that has been planted in the same row as last year?
2. Are you planning for the compatibility of one plant next to another?
3. Are you considering interplanting this year, and if so, do you have a plan as to what plants will be planted in and amongst each other? (Example: Lettuce and tomatoes grow well together).
4. Are there any rows or beds of plants in this year’s plan that are going to cause too much shade for other rows or beds of plants?

Here are some questions to ask yourself about the duties that will help you prepare your vegetable garden for the spring:

• Wintertime is a great time to clean and even paint the handles of your hand tools (shovels, mattocks, pitchforks and other soil turning tools). Are they oiled down to help prevent rust? Have you sharpened every tool that needs a good sharp edge? (pruning shears, loopers, hand held knifes spades and other shovels).
• Have you completed putting together a large compost heap that you will let sit without turning at all during the winter months? One that you can build and then let it break down on its own!
• Have you seeded a cover crop over the entire vegetable garden plot, such as annual rye grass? This will control erosion, and help to add nutrient to the soil in the spring. If you are not going to plant a cover crop, have you considered mulching the garden to protect the soil from heavy rains?
• Have you ordered or received your seed catalogs and planned out what you are going to order from them, or have you already ordered your seeds and transplants?

It’s important for you to know what’s happening in the garden soil. Get a soil test done from your local Agricultural Extension Service and adjust the soil with amendments as needed. For those of you who have a very short growing season, it may be best for you to do your soil improvement at the end of the growing season, rather than at the beginning of spring, and let it rest through the winter.

It is also important for you to keep up with the weeds through the winter months, and early into the spring. Avoid allowing the weeds to compete with newly planted seeds and transplants. You may want to run a rototiller over the soil to loosen it to a depth of 6” and to begin to form the planting beds based on the plan you drew up during the winter. Remember to be flexible, as things may need to change due to a variety of reasons.

What about your plan to irrigate your garden? Do you know what type of watering system you want or is it already in place? Are you going to hand water, use a soaker hose set-up or use some type of drip system?

What type of fertilizer is available? Can you very easily go to your local garden supplier to retrieve the appropriate plant food? Are you going to garden organically and just use composted plant matter, vegetable and yard wastes and manures?

There are a lot of questions to be answered well in advance of the springtime months. Don’t be caught scurrying around at the last minute and have to undertake a big task that will set you back. Planning ahead will make for a much smoother growing season, and it will be less physically stressful on your body. Have a great garden season!

Quick Composting: The 14 day Method

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Starting a compost heap is easier than you may think. Getting compost to the finished stage, quickly, is just as easy. Follow these steps and you will have completely finished and ready to use compost in just 14 days. The photo above is of a pile at day 3 after turning and re-stacking.

Day 1: Loosen up the dirt area with a heavy pitch fork or roto-tiller where you want the compost pile to live for the next two weeks. Drive a six-foot tall stake into the ground. Don’t drive it too deeply, as you’ll need to remove it in a few days. Saturate the ground with water and let it soak in.

Your first layer should be at least five to six feet square. Start making alternate layers with grass clippings or other green wastes, then brown materials like straw, dried twigs or shredded bark or mulch. Include household vegetable scraps and manures as well.

Wet each layer, adding just enough moisture to soak the layer thoroughly. Build your layers at least five to six feet square at the base, building up in a trapezoid shape to at least four feet square at the top of the pile. Continue to layer and moisten the pile. Build the pile up to about five feet tall. Wet down the entire outside surface, once your pile is complete.

Day 2: The pile should begin to heat up. With the mass of the pile, more than one cubic yard, the pile will heat up on its own. The pile will begin to break down and you’ll notice some settling. If you stick your fingers in around the stake in the center of the pile, you can feel the warmth. Ideally, you need the heap to heat up to at least 140 degrees to start killing off bad pathogens. Don’t let it get much hotter than that, or you’ll start killing off the good bacteria.

Day 3: First chop with a mattock or a turning with a pitch fork! Remove the entire outside layer of material and put it out of the way for now. Chop the rest of the pile, making sure you get a thorough turning of the material. Replace the material that was the outside layer into the center and wet it down. Put the pile back up around the stake, one foot at a time and wet down each foot tall layer.

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