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Spring Garden Prep!

After winter snow and frozen ground melt away it’s time to get started on preparing your  garden for planting. Spring Garden Prep can be accomplished over a month or so to prepare for Flower AND vegetable gardening.  Here’s a List of tasks to keep you busy until planting time.

Spring Garden Prep

Spring Garden Prep

Some Garden blog friends and I are pooling our knowledge and experience together. 

This week, our garden Themes focus on Preparing the garden for planting. Read on for an intro to our garden. Then it’s onto a quick list for Spring Garden Prep. Finally our many links to articles by our participating Garden Blogs!

This Is Our Garden In March 2016. Dave Is Getting The Spring Garden Prep Done!

This is our garden in March 2016. Dave is getting the Spring Garden Prep Done! The raised beds will be planted this weekend. The lower garden is too wet to plant. Dave will remove the cardboard/plastic mulch later in spring when the ground dries out.

Welcome to our garden!

Gardening is a huge part of our lives here at Homemade Food Junkie. Dave and I have Gardened this piece of property off and on for over 30 years. I hope you’ll dig around in our garden and greenhouse articles and see what Dave’s been up to. Also check out why we garden organically!  Last year Dave started using the Lunar Calendar to plan all his gardening chores. Even seed sowing and transplanting! If you’re a new gardener; you’ll want to think about  garden plot location considerations. We also made a post about our  spring garden projects to inspire you! It’s Spring! Let’s get ready for gardening!

Rhubarb In Our Garden With Gravel Walks And Raised Beds Http://Homemadefoodjunkie.com

Our gravel walks make weed control around the raised beds SO much easier! Notice the hoops! Dave uses them for winter gardening. He also uses them for spring cold protection of delicate transplants, like his peppers!

We live way up in the Northwestern most corner of our contiguous 50 states. According to the USDA garden Zone Map, This is a convergence zone. We are zone 8a but some winters we go all the way down to a zone 4 if we get the extremely dold, brutal Arctic winds from British Columbia’s Fraiser River Valley. 

Cool weather crops love it here. Spinach, Broccoli, Cabbage and leafy greens like kale are a few of our favorites. Early spring is the time to set up your asparagus bed and plant your rhubarb bush

Our property soil is almost pure clay. We get a lot of rain here. Weeds often grow right through the winter. We never see a dormant weed season unless the Canadian North East Wind wakes up and pays us a call. It’s been sleeping the last couple of years. We gratefully start our garden in early March in years like this. Warm, wet and blustery.  

Dave has built four huge raised beds to better grow our produce and import a better quality soil for them. We love those raised beds for many reasons. They are a really great idea in your garden! Try winter hoop gardening with raised beds too!

Dave’s Baby: Our Greenhouse:

Our Greenhouse- Garden History

Our Greenhouse. Dave built it in 2014 to house his beloved tomato and pepper plants. Turns out Cucumbers love it in there too! The greenhouse is a lot of fun. It needs spring garden preparation too!

Spring Garden Prep:

  • Remove winter clutter, weeds, aged winter crops and debris from the garden area.
  • Plan out the types of crops you wish to grow. Make sure you have the proper conditions for them (heat, soil and light) in your planting area.
  • Prune your bushes and trees while they are dormant.
  • Now is the time to build your raised beds, if desired. Make sure you orient them correctly for best sun exposure:
  • Amend your garden soil according to the needs of your crops.
  • Germinate and plant your seed in MARKED rows, evenly spaced.
  • Place cold frames over your beds as needed to protect the seeds and seedlings

    Building Cold Frames For Seedlings

    Covering your fragile seedlings with a cold frame is an excellent idea in early spring.

Here’s a Summary for you!

Spring Garden Prep!

Our garden has its up and downs but we love it! Hunt around on this blog and look at the garden and greenhouse posts for ideas and information we have gleaned over the years. I’m sure we can help each other! Leave comments for me on your own experiences in the garden. We’d love to get to know you!

Join me in Exploring these Excellent Blogger’s Garden Adventures: Click the blog links at the bottom of each picture! Go see what other gardeners from all over the country are doing to prepare their gardens for the growing season!

Tuesday In The Garden

Frugal Family Home

Tuesday In The Garden

SimplifyLiveLove.com

Tuesday In The Garden

AnOregonCottage.com

Tuesday In The Garden

HouseOfHawthornes

Tuesday In The Garden

AngieTheFreckledRose.com

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Spring Garden Prep Is A Collection Of Ideas By Gardeners From All Over The U.s. To Make Spring Garden Prep A Snap!

Diana@Gardening Experts London

Thursday 18th of August 2016

Your garden is lovely, I'm so happy I found your blog. You and Dave have done an amazing job with it! I've never used the lunar calendar for planting, but I'm starting to consider it.

Thank you!

Diane

Thursday 18th of August 2016

Welcome to Homemade Food Junkie Diana! I'm delighted you're enjoying the blog. We love to share this ever expanding hobby and lifestyle with fellow garden enthusiasts. Do try the Lunar cycle gardening and share your garden adventures with us. We welcome fellow gardeners sharing their experiences with gardening methods. If you have pictures you wish to share feel free to add them in as well. Happy Gardening

Angie Rose

Friday 25th of March 2016

I really like how you and Dave use the lunar calendar for planting. I’ve been trying to get into that lately, and it’s been really helpful. Your raised beds are gorgeous. I love how you have the path in between them and I really like how you have put down stone gravel to walk on. I eventually want to do that as well! This was my first year building a hoop house over my raised garden for the winter. Boy, did it make all the difference. Your spring vegetable crop sounds wonderful! The greenhouse is absolutely glorious! Such a good tip to place cold frames over spring crops. I’ve been wanting to try this with cloches. Can’t wait to watch your garden progress throughout the growing season!

homemadefoodjunkie

Saturday 26th of March 2016

Thank you Angie Rose! I'm really looking forward to seeing your garden this year too! So fun to have new gardener friends.

Shelly

Wednesday 23rd of March 2016

I just love your greenhouse. We need to take out an old deck in our backyard and we are thinking of adding a greenhouse in it's place. I know it would really nice to have. You have such a lovely garden.

homemadefoodjunkie

Wednesday 23rd of March 2016

Shelly I hope you put up a greenhouse there! We have been so happy with ours. Make it as big as you can afford with lots of ventilation built in. We did and we still have problems with pests and molds. But we love it in there. It provides us a delightful work place in the spring and fall. And it grows dynamite tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers!

Michelle Marine

Wednesday 23rd of March 2016

I love this tour of your garden, Diane! I'm so excited to follow along this year and learn from you. Lovely!! <3

homemadefoodjunkie

Wednesday 23rd of March 2016

Michelle, I feel the same way! It's just so exciting to see what you and our fellow gardeners are doing! I'm looking forward to getting some great discussions going about gardening this year. It's so fun to see what each other is interested in and how we approach our various garden challenges!

Jami

Tuesday 22nd of March 2016

I love how you combine raised beds with a traditional part of the garden - really illustrates how that helps you extend the season, since you can plant so much earlier!

homemadefoodjunkie

Tuesday 22nd of March 2016

Jami, Raised beds have been such an answer for us! They make even winter gardening possible here in mild winters. We can also change u the dirt and manage them so much more easily. We are so in love with those beds!The lower part also has it's uses for sprawling and really tall plants. But it's very limiting.