Get Ready for Spring: Easy Ways to Prep Your Garden

It’s never too early to start envisioning your beautiful garden.

For those who are new to land ownership and gardening, there are a few essentials steps you can take to prepare your soil for your spring or summer garden.

We’ve compiled a few of those steps below.

Determine Your Soil’s Health

Before you can decide what to plant and how to plant it, you have to understand your soil’s composition.

Nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous are among the most important minerals for healthy plant growth—do you know what your soil’s nutrient content is?

Testing for these minerals is easy with a soil testing kit.

Local cooperative extensions may also provide affordable soil testing.

Start Composting

Composting will provide your garden with a rich source of minerals. It also gives back to the soil in general, and reduces the amount of waste you produce.

In the Southern United States, it’s best to compost between mid-to-late February and early March, since that’s when the warm-season planting begins.

After you’ve evaluated your soil’s health, you can determine where to place compost more thickly.

For less organically rich soils, 4 to 6 inches of compost matter is recommended.

For more organically rich soils, 1 to 3 inches of compost matter is recommended.

Loosen Your Soil

Before you plant your spring garden, it’s important to make sure the soil isn’t compacted.

While composting is great for loosening soil, many gardeners find they need to do more to ensure their plants can take root and grow.

Here are a few tips for soil loosening before spring planting:

• Don’t start too early. If the ground is still soggy or wet from recent frost, your efforts will be worthless. Grab a chunk of soil from the ground and squeeze. Does it fall apart or stick together? If it sticks together, the ground isn’t ready for loosening. If it crumbles, you’re in business.
• Add organic matter as needed. Adding organic matter to your soil will help your garden thrive. Undecomposed horse or cow manure, compost, or shredded leaves will work. If you purchase your compost, make sure you ask about safety for use in vegetable gardens.
• Don’t be afraid to dig further than usual. If you’re planting a new garden, you’ll need to till the soil more deeply than you would with an existing garden. As a general rule, 6 to 10 inches of soil loosening is needed for a first-year garden. Once you include compost or organic matter, you’ll be looking at a total soil depth of about 10 to 12 inches. If you’re loosening soil in an existing garden, you only need to dig about 3 inches down.

Perform Maintenance on Your Garden Tools

To plant a healthy, thriving garden, you need your tools to be in top shape.

Late winter is the perfect time to perform maintenance on your garden tools to ensure that they’re ready to go.

Clean your shears, spades, shovels and hoes thoroughly before it’s time to use them. You can use a wire brush, WD-40 and a dry rag to get them sparkling again.

Alcohol can also help break through dried soil or mud that’s been left on the tools through winter.

Invest in New Land, Plant a New Garden

Maybe you have your heart set on a new plot of land this year--one where you can build the garden of your dreams.

Hurdle Land and Realty can make that dream come true.

We have a number of beautiful lots available, any of which are perfect for planting and maintaining a brand new garden.

Contact Hurdle Land and Realty to learn more.