Get an Early Start for Your Spring Garden

Do a little work in the fall to prepare your garden for an early, productive crop in the spring.

October is the beginning of my horticulture year . That ’s when I ready the garden to front the winter rain while at the same time prepare it for an early first come leaping .

Our first few years of garden in the Northwest instruct us that a benign mood does n’t mean all pass well in the garden . The wintertime rainwater can affect the pH of the stain , leach nutrients , and turn our garden beds to clay . Come summer , the same bed can dry out out and be unmanageable to make for . Then there are the slugs . An off - season scheme of mulch the bed solves most of the problem . With summer ’s garden debris removed and a thick layer of mulch applied , I can go about my winter maintenance chores : storing the pots , scrubbing the potting container , organizing the tools , and setting out the unripened tomatoes and late - time of year pears on the pot terrace to mature . Then we wait .

My fall yard work serve double duty since I gather leave and carry them no further than the vegetable garden , where I pile them 2 to 4 inches deep . I apply healthy tree leaves and no other course of yard trimmings . Grass contains both grass and weed seed , rosebush have black spot and powdery mould , and other flora are host to numerous pests .

Preparation for spring begins in the fall

1 . Mulch with autumn leaves . There are many ways to enrich and lighten territory texture . The most convenient method acting for me is to mulch the garden bed with fall leaves that I gather elsewhere around the yard . Because the leaves crumble at dissimilar rate , the more undestroyable farewell - such as wisteria or hawthorn - keep the grunge shelter for months and keep the soil airy when turned under . I have had no disease problems from the leaves .

2 . Netting secure the leaves . The only difficultness in using leaves as mulch is that you may waken up the next break of the day to find them botch up out of the vegetable garden and back under your trees . hoot netting is a everlasting solution . Because I habituate raise beds , I simply staple the netting around the margin of the cedar planking , bunching up unretentive lengths of net and staple through the gathers . I apply 3 / 8 - inch staples , which are light enough to come out easy ; fall spring , I tug on the gathered veiling , and the staple pulls out without displume the veiling .

3 . blade hoop are easy to bend . Although American gardeners seldom use them , hoops like these are everywhere in France , where they are a favorite garden perimeter . I made my hoops out of 3 / 8 - inch unsullied - steel tube from a local salvage yard . To keep the conformation uniform , I bent length of the tubing around a paint can ; I provide about 6 inch additional on either ending to put in the footing .

4 . hoop hold down the netting . I use the basketball to border our herb bed and several prime bed . Unlike sunken perimeters , such as plastic layer borders , the hoops can be pronto transfer and reinstalled if desired . Here I ’m using the hoops as an alternative to staples to hold down netting over leafage mulch . If your garden is n’t divided into raised bed , you may stretch netting over very large expanse of it . The brand hoops make convenient tie - downs and all in lugging bricks and stones around . If you desire the gauze to be tight , tilt the hoops away from the garden in the manner of a tent stake .

Of course , mulch does n’t stop the rain , but the rain can not pelt the bed into a swampy mess , and the leaves slowly fertilize the filth . In addition , leaf mulch shades the land and help keep weeds at bay . In Zone 8 , weeds are perfectly uncoerced to sprout and maturate most of the class ; they go about their job until a hard Robert Frost stops them . A mulch of leaves greatly quash my fountain weeding chores .

I cover the folio mulch with snort netting , tacked down with staples or metallic element hoops of the sort my married woman and I remark in France . In the early spring I roll up the gauze and coiffure it aside . My first spring task is to turn the soil , both to loose it and to blend the remaining leave . I expend a three - forked hoe that , like the hoops , is of European origin .

To startle the outflow season ahead of time , I employ two maneuver when I mark out plant start or seed the bed . For edible bean and radish plant or almost any seed , I create a tent out of the netting to keep out squirrels , birds , and cats . I lay the ring in the plaza of the beds like a tunnel of croquet wicket and stretch the veiling over the top . That leaves one job : slugs .

Netting and cloches pamper seeds and seedlings

1 . Cultivate with a three - pronged hoe . Much to my surprisal each spring , the netting is never snarl in leaf because of the decay operation that come as the garden overwinters . I wave up the netting for storage and use it year after year . I ’ve used several brands , and none has degenerate from weather condition or Dominicus exposure . I sour and aerate the soil with a three - pronged hoe . This prick is comfortable on the backbecause it lifts just a quarter of the volume of a conventional fork , and because you rend it rather than lift it .

2 . Netting protects seeds . Once the filth is turned and the leave-taking are turn in , the bed look like an accomplishment in themselves , even without the veggie seeds and transplants . All the squirrels , wench , and neighborhood qat will harmonize that your handwork await tempting . I used to find my garden undo by the stick with morning - seeded player asunder , starts dug up , and true cat business to boot . No more . Again I brood the beds with net and again I utilise the hoop - but this time the wicket go down the center of the bed to make a tent out of the netting . Once covered , the bed are secure from local wildlife .

3 . A cloche protects transplants . Like metal hoops , the crank ship’s bell , shout a cloche , is another classic European machine { likely French ) for the vegetable garden . The cloche is a one - plant life cold flesh and it works like thaumaturgy for early spring showtime such as clams . Why not use a cold-blooded frame ? With a cold frame the plant must be moved ; with a cloche the plant is undisturbed when it is time to take away its cover .

4 . Plastic jugs make cheap cloche . The job with the cloche is the building block cost for a dozen or more lettuce starts . cloche cost at least $ 50 apiece in the States . I needed a cheap second-stringer ; otherwise , my $ 1 packet of cabbage would become the most expensive dough on earth at $ 600 for a twelve point . I use plastic wine jugs and cut off the bottoms . I leave the lid off the bottle and body of water through the opening . Two - liter pop bottle will work but they are much small . Check your supermarket for filmy containers that will do the job , and give you other dough for pennies .

-D.R.

Here again , an old European garden practice comes to the rescue : the cloche . Those glass bell shape attend to me like a long - go strait-laced invention until I saw them in an upscale garden catalogue — with a very contemporary price tag . The echt import cloche is expensive , made of chalk , and rarely picture . Still , it ’s a great direction to create a micro - climate for early springiness planting . I employ plastic wine-colored jug instead , though there are many products that come in similar plastic container . Plastic container let light to reach the plants and service much the same role as the glass bell , at slight or no price . The bottoms of the plastic jugs can be swerve off with a public-service corporation knife or scissor grip . I leave the lid off the bottle and irrigate the plants through the opening . With Bibb wampum , I give the cloche on until the plant is quick for the table . With leaf lettuce or romaine , I take away the cloche before the plants outgrow their quarter .

Although the wench netting will keep most wight aside , slugs are another topic . The cloche is tight to a perfect resolution . It have a very vivid slug to climb the cloche and enter the top initiative .

— David Rigby garden from early spring to late fall in Seattle , Washington .

Photos : Rob Vinnedge and North Overby .

February 2000

fromKitchen Gardening#25

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