Tips for Planning Your Spring Garden: From Fertilizing to Pruning

Spring is right around the corner and now is the perfect time to get a jump start on your garden chores. Here are some tips on preparing your garden for spring planting, and making your garden easier to care for.

We all hate weeds and weeding. It often takes hours of back breaking work to rid our gardens of these ubiquitous plants. You can eliminate most of the problems associated with weeds by acting fast. Use a pre-emergent. A good pre-emergent effectively kills weeds at the seed level, before they ever sprout. By applying it now, before weeds take a chokehold on your gardens, you will eliminate 99% of common weeds like crabgrasses and spurges. For the organic gardener, corn gluten meal provides us with a highly effective totally safe method of killing weeds. You can find it offline at major garden centers and online at www.notonightdeer.com.

Once your weeds are under control, mulch. This is critical in reducing watering needs and creates a tidy well cared for look in your garden. You have a wide variety of choices in mulches. From the chocolatey scented cocoa mulch to plain straw. Mulching helps protect plants from pets, some insects and also provides a valuable insulator against summer's heat. Make certain mulch is laid at least 1 inch thick to be effective.

Fertilize your lawns. Right now in many areas the temperatures are warm enough to use a good weed and feed product on your lawns. If your lawn is over 45% weed, consider tilling it up, adding a layer of compost, and reseeding or sodding. Though the initial labor and sod will cost more, it is returned ten times over in saved time and labor.

If you've noticed a lot of water run off when watering your grass, consider aerating and de-thatching. Both of these will lighten the soil and provide much better drainage for your lawn. You can rent both tools at most home and garden centers. Aerating alone can be done with a sturdy pitchfork, though you have to make certain the entire length of the tine goes into the soil.

Prune your roses. If you didn't do Fall pruning, now is the time to prune your roses back to the strongest 3-4 canes. Remove any crossed canes and pick up any debris mounded around their bases. Spray your canes with dormant oil, thoroughly saturating the entire woody bush. This step will kill any insects which have buried themselves in the woody canes. Yes, you can spray any bushes that have leafed. This will smother aphids rapidly and will not hurt the leafing structure at all.

Spray trees and roses with a copper/sulfur mixture to foster good healthy growth and provide critical protection against fungal diseases, such as black spot and mildews.

Try early fertilization of your plants with an organic feed such as Dr. Earth's or earthworm castings mixed with powdered kelp. Why? Because high nitrogen chemical feeds encourage rapid insect growth. Critters like aphids smell the nitrogen and swarm the plants looking for honeydew.

If you have a home tiller such as Mantis, till your beds at least 3 times before Spring planting. Remove big clods, debris and stones, then add your chosen amendments. Two days before planting, go ahead and turn the earth one more time. The fertilizers and other amendments will have had time to have "settled" in, and provide consistent nutrients to young seedlings. Speaking of seedlings, order right now if you're planning to buy seeds and plants through catalogue. Quantities of rare and highly popular plants often run out by the first of April!

Finally, check and clean any garden equipment and tools. Inspect your gloves for holes or signs of heavy wear and replace them. If you handle major insecticides, consider buying a separate pair of gloves for working in your vegetable garden. These toxic chemicals have a long residual life, which means they can transfer to your growing harvest. Better yet try organic solutions for any insect problems. Many major companies, including Safer, offer highly effective totally safe solutions to insect control.

Reminder: Get your tetanus shot!!!!! Working with soils and other "live" materials carries a risk. If you haven't had a tetanus shot in the last 5 years, please do yourself a favor and get it done.

Just by taking the time to perform these chores, you've saved yourself many frustrating hours in the garden.