Transitioning The Garden

Visualizing A Garden Plan: Now is the perfect time to transfer those great ideas in your head onto paper. Once you do this, it really helps you visualize your vegetable garden. In return, the ideas you have become more tangible. Pick which spots would work best for different vegetables. Take into consideration the dimensions of your full grown plants. Plants that grows vertically don't need an unnecessary amount of width like pole beans. On the other hand, vegetables like bush beans might need a little bit of a wider container. When you take care of all these things in advance, it makes the gardening season go so much smoother. Having all of this down on paper also really helps when venturing to your local garden center. It's so much easier to maintain a budget on seeds and plants when you have your garden plan in hand.

Clean Up Berry Plants & Patches: In my yard, I have a strawberry patch that is 5' x 6'. During the fall and winter, I leave debris like brush and fallen leaves covering my dormant fruits. In the early spring, it is important to clean this up and make sure your plants have plenty of room to grow. The earlier you start weeding around your berries, the easier it is. I've found that weeds can quickly take over your healthy plants, and it's almost impossible to get rid of them all late in the season. Add fresh, new compost and soil to the patch to maintain healthy, ripe fruit. Early to mid spring is also a great time to plant new blueberry and raspberry bushes. When it comes to blackberries, it's time to prune the tips of your blackberry canes. This will help the plants yield more fruit. Make sure to dispose of dead or diseased looking canes.

Get Your Game Face On: Like any task you may want to accomplish in life, it's better to come prepared. Now is the time to take inventory of the garden tools in your shed. If you are missing an important tool, adding it to your arsenal now is better than doing it mid season. Also take note on how many bags of soil you need, how much compost the garden will require and the amount of mulch necessary to maintain a weed free space. Nobody wants to be adding a large amount of this under the hot July sun. It's much easier to put this all down before the first heat wave is in sight.