I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but the last frost is barely a month away! With that shock settling in slowly, I’m starting to prepare my garden for the summer months and enjoying the early taste of warmth and sunshine. There isn’t too much to do right now, but there are a few things you could be keeping busy with that your transplants will thank you for.
Getting the soil ready
Now that we’re almost at the point of being ready to start getting non-frost-resistant plants outside, it’s a good time to start getting the soil ready. Whether you have a rotor tiller or a garden fork, the main objective is to turn the dirt over to aerate it. A good sunny day after the soil has dried out is good for this and will make mixing in some organic matter a breeze.
Good choices are: manure, which your local farm will be delighted to let you take away (as long as someone hasn’t beaten you to the punch), home-made compost and liquid kelp. I haven’t been lucky enough to find any liquid kelp yet, but the amount of positivity I’ve heard about it leaves me very comfortable about recommending it. Should be available in your nearest gardening centre, but failing that, eBay or bait shops are a good bet.
If you’re going to be using compost from your own kitchen scraps and it has been in the open for a while, I’d suggest baking it in the oven or getting a specific BBQ grill especially for compost to kill off the weed seeds and any potential pathogens.
Plant out your hardy veg
Some vegetables are tough as nails and laugh at the puny frost ruining their day. Luckily, these are also the ones that you’re pretty likely to have. Purdue University did a great post on frost hardy vegetables, which includes peas and onion. The veg in the hardy vegetables column are ready to be planted outside and will do just fine in the April sun, but the vegetables in the central column aren’t as easy of a choice. Depending on where you live, it may need to get a few degrees warmer before you’re ready to get them in the ground.
However, if you’re dead-set on getting start as soon as possible, cut some black bags open and attach them to the ground above your seeds. This should provide a mini greenhouse warm enough to get your seedlings through the coming weeks with ease.
Oh, and don’t forget to label what you’ve planted! If I had a dollar for the amount of times I completely glossed over that, only to worry about it months later, I’d be retired on the coast of France right now. Plant in rows for easy weeding and to avoid your garden growing in to the kind of jungle that will attract all kinds of nasties – including the ire of your neighbours.
Divide Et Impera
The last thing for you to do over the next few days is to divide out your perennials. The space to stretch their legs is comparable to the first night in a double bed and will encourage them to grow in to bushier plants. To uproot them, wait until the soil is a little damp, but mostly dry and reach in to the ground with your hand. Slowly cradle your fingers underneath the roots and gently pull the plants up to the surface. Once you have enough the out, you’ve passed the hardest stage – getting them out alive can be a bit scary, but the roots should come out with minimal force.
Now, with your perennials in hand, shake off the excess soil and tenderly pull them apart so that you have one plant in each hand. Replant them as soon as you’ve separated them out to prevent the roots drying out and around the same depth that you took them out from, while ensuring they’re far enough apart to not grow straight back together. Give them a nice watering as a reward for surviving the surgery and you should be ready to move on to the next patients.
All in all, there isn’t too much to do, but taking care of the small jobs now will save you a lot of work in the future.
What have you been doing in your garden to prepare for spring?
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