Get Your Garden Ready for Spring

People are already planning the garden they will be planting come spring. Fall and winter months are an ideal time to prepare for spring vegetable planting.

Not only is the home garden a source for fresh vegetables that will help reduce your food budget, improve your diet and but it's also an excuse to get outside and burn up calories.

However, thanks to our growing dependence on technology, not enough people are taking advantage of all the benefits gardening has to offer. Instead of taking the time to enjoy nature and cultivate the land, a lot of people think gardening means you simply jump on the mower, fire up the weed eater, turn on the sprinklers and pour on the pesticide.

Once you have the weeds chopped down and the grass mowed, the next thing is to break up the soil for planting. Heavy duty tools like a Broadfork will make this part of the job so much easier. The 20 inch wide fork is sharpened to take big chunks from the ground. The 60 inch handles give you lots of leverage to break the soil loose. There’s much less bending over than a hoe requires, and no need to hack or chop at the soil.

Once the soil is broken up, it's time to cultivate. Instead of using a gas-powered tiller, you can create a smooth planting bed with an easy-to-use rotary cultivator. To use this cultivator, you push it in front of you as you walk down the rows of your garden. The wheel breaks up the soil and works in your compost or peat moss.

When you have finished cultivating, it’s time to plant. To keep your rows straight, just drive a one-foot stake at the end of each row and tie a string between them. Then use the string as a guideline.

No need to get down crawling on hands and knees if you get yourself an old fashioned corn planter. You simply pour the seeds into the cup, push the steel blade into the ground and squeeze the handles. The seeds will drop right where you want them. It’s a very efficient system and allows you to finish a chore that could take hours in just minutes.

If you want butterflies visiting your garden, once you have your vegetable seeds in the ground, you can plant catnip, oregano, and hollyhocks between the rows. The scent and colors attract the beautiful creatures. Butterflies also like red carnations, bee balm and begonias.

Make a pledge to water your plants by hand every day with a watering can. And instead of using pesticides to kill the weeds, get out there every day with a hoe and pull them up.

To keep bugs away, sprinkle a mixture of flour and garlic powder on your plants. The mix will get pasty on the leaves if applied too thickly. If you take the time to maintain your garden, it will look great all season long, and you’ll be the envy of all your neighbors.

Once your vegetables come in, be sure to pick the fruits and vegetables as soon as they are ripe. The quicker you pick the vegetables the more time new vegetables will have to grow.

When the vegetable garden season is over, if you don’t want bugs eating the remains of your garden, plant marigolds and garlic in every garden row.