Dreaming of a Spring Garden

Spring Vegetable Garden: Dream Big, but Start Small

Ahhh! Spring is here at last! It's time to shake ourselves out of hibernation mode and start digging in the dirt.

As with every year, I have a lofty aspiration of creating the vegetable garden that will surpass all others. This is a hopeful season, after all. In order to keep this goal realistic and manageable, I have created a path to get the garden to where I want it to be this year.

1. Test the garden soil: done. The garden soil's N-P-K ranges have graduated from depleted to deficient. We're making progress here!

2. Add soil amendments to the garden soil: in progress. Recent heavy rains are delaying this chore a bit, but we do need the rain so no complaints here. This year I'm adding blood meal (for nitrogen), bone meal (for phosphorus), and numerous, about a hundred or so,  Nori sushi roll wrappers, cut up (for potash), as well as good ol' reliable compost.

3. Plant snow peas, carrots, and Swiss chard (the rainbow variety) in the container garden area: mission accomplished.

4. Plan the main garden with an app: done. For a list of great gardening apps, you can't go wrong with Gardenista's "The Top Ten Gardening Apps You Need Now." 

5. Start tomato, cucumber, and squash seeds: partially complete. Some of the seedlings didn't make it, so I'll try again this weekend. I also want to start some pepper seeds--both hot and sweet varieties--at this time. One thing I really want to do is to start at least 90% of my plants from seed myself,  rather than rely on bought transplants.

6. Feed and mulch the blueberry planter box: done. I used pine bark mulch since the blueberry bushes are acid-loving plants.

7. Feed and mulch the strawberry plants: in progress.

8. Transplant the four citrus trees--Meyer lemon, key lime, grapefruit, and kumquat: mission accomplished. The trees are looking happy.

9. Transplant tomato, cucumber, squash, and pepper plants: in about a month to six weeks' time.

10. Keep the compost pile going: this is a continuous project.

11. Plant green beans, wax beans, collard greens, and basil: in a few weeks.

12. Mulch the main garden: in about six to eight weeks' time. This will cut down the weeding headaches tremendously.

13. Put a comfortable lawn chair near the garden area in order to relax and bask in the garden: soon, very soon.

Here's to making garden fantasies a reality! Happy Gardening!

By Spedona (Spedona) (Cliché personnel - own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

This is close to how I envision my garden in the making.

To-Do List to Prepare the Garden for Spring

Preparing the Garden for Spring--in Winter

Even though we are in the throes of winter, a gardener's fancy turns to the possibilities that the warmer months offer. The ground may be covered in ice and snow (or, in my area, cold soggy mud), but we as gardeners can set the stage for a welcome splash of color come springtime. Hence, here is my top ten list for preparing the spring garden during these colder months:

1. Clean up the asparagus bed. Weed, mulch, and fertilize asparagus plants.

2. Perform a soil test.

3. Add organic amendments to the soil and allow them to break down during the next six to eight weeks or so. I will be working in blood meal, bone meal, wood ashes, and rabbit pellets made of alfalfa (the pellets will be moistened so that they break down without attracting rabbits) into the soil.

4. Peruse the gardening catalogs with delight.

5. Create a new garden plan for the existing main garden.

6. Create new garden space and start building up the fertility.

7. Have a new planter box created; this one will be for strawberries. Planter boxes have become a welcome birthday tradition during the past several years.

8. Weed, feed, prune, and mulch the blueberry plants; they inhabit one of the planter boxes mentioned above.

9. Look over the existing herbs and decide which new herbs to buy. Mint and bay are but two herbs on my list.

10. Plant daylilies around the bases of several trees in the yard.

11. Okay, I could not resist one more item: dream fondly about this year's upcoming garden and its bounty.

By Patrick CharpiatPatrick.charpiat at fr.wikipedia [CC-BY-SA-2.0-fr (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/fr/deed.en) or CC-BY-SA-2.0-fr (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/fr/deed.en)], from Wikimedia Commons