After any winter your garden will require from you to invest quite a bit of effort to bring it back to life. While there are plenty of different jobs that you will have to do, here are some of the most important ones that will help you to bring your garden to the level that will make it the best garden in the neighborhood.
Seeds
If you are preparing for a lot of growing this spring, seeds are the most important thing that you have to get. Plan out what you want to plant this spring and get started by getting all the seeds that you will need. You can get seeds in a variety of different places, from homegrown fruit at a local farmers market to various online catalogs. Getting seeds is not that hard but you should have a plan on how you are going to arrange all those different seeds in your garden. Not all plants like company and some may have trouble growing next to plants that they don’t like. Plants are snobby that way. Starting up seedlings indoor is a good way to speed up the growing process.
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Cleanup
This is where things usually get dirty as you will have to invest a lot of time into removing all kinds of things that can gather around during winter. Things like dead plants, trash, leafs and various other things can get in a way of your new plants. Get rid of all that and start removing weeds and similar trouble makers. This will allow your plants to grow without any problems and complications. Get those gloves on your hands and start the real spring cleanup in your garden so that the ground and the plants get to breathe.
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Soil Quality
Getting the soil ready for your plants is among the most important things that you can do. First you need to test your soil in order to figure out what sort of plant will suit it best. You can either get professional or get a test utility from your local store. Knowing what your soils pH value is, will greatly simplify the whole process for you. Most common and generally regarded as optimal pH value is within the range between 5 to 7. Using manure and various other types of natural and nonorganic fertilizers is a good way to bring your soil quality to the optimal range.
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Ground Texture
Before you actually start planting any of the seeds that you have, make sure that your soil is properly processed mechanically. Plowing is usually a process that is done in the autumn but if you didn’t do it at that time, you can do this in the spring as well. This means that you have to ground down and pulverize any big chunks of earth and smooth it out. This will allow you to plants to grow in soft ground speeding up the process sand aerating the ground as well. Aerated soil is very important for the plant growth and it is essential for the quality of the plants.
Irrigation
In most places spring will bring in a lot of rain and you should therefore have enough water to water your seedlings but if you have too much of that water or too little problems may start appearing. It is important to have a well maintained irrigation system in your garden no matter how small it is. This will allow you to both water your garden with enough water and also speed up the process of removing excess water away from your plants. Too much water can cause a wide range of problems like yeast infections and various diseases. If necessary, you will have to install some of the more extensive and complex watering systems in order to keep the plants properly watered at all times.
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Spacing
Make sure that you plants have enough space to grow. When you start planting your seedlings, know just how big the plants are when they start growing and how much space they need. Different plants need different amount of both space and sunlight. Keeping plants too close will cause a lot of issues like limiting access to air and sunlight. If your garden doesn’t receive enough sunlight consider removing some of the local trees. Most local landscape firms can perform various tree services, and help you sort this out.
Photograph: Lisa Lewis, published originally on Mercer Island Pulse
Having a well-kept and properly maintained garden is of the fundamental important for any type of plant that you plan on growing. No matter what sort of arrangement you have in your garden or what you use to keep the various pests away, you will have to make sure that you do it regularly. This will greatly simplify your garden maintenance and allow you to prevent a whole range of problems and issues.
