Seasonal Garden Care A gorgeous garden that remains evergreen all year round needs a more disciplined approach than mere watering and weeding and this means understanding the implications on your plants during each season. This is a garden care guide for every season that will help you learn how to adapt your maintenance routine so that your plants are guaranteed to win, from spring till winter, no matter if you’re an advanced gardener or just starting out. We’ll take you through ways to maintain healthy, thriving plants throughout the entire year — from an explosion of greenery in the spring, to the gentle slumber of winter. Seasonal Garden Care
Seasonal Garden Maintenance is a Must
By keeping on top of seasonal tasks, gardeners can help their flowers shine, their plants grow healthfully and never feel like the show is over when summer ends. Properly done, seasonal care will provide your plants with the necessary nutrients and protection when they need it most. Heed this warning: Not paying attention to these seasonal shifts can lead to lackluster plants, bug infestations or the worst – plant death. Whether you have a small kitchen garden, living in an urban apartment, or juggling both in your backyard gardening, growing with seasons is essential for beginners like us. Seasonal Garden Care
Spring Gardening: Bringing Your Garden Out of the Winter Slumber
Finally, spring, rebirth of nature. Your garden is coming back to life after winter and now is the time to put down roots. An early spring is the ideal time to shape up for a fruitful year ahead.
1. The Key To Success Is Spring Soil Preparation
And with spring, it all starts. First, you will want to determine what exactly your soil is like. It will be squashed and drained of vital nutrients come winter. As a general rule, the best thing to do is make sure you will aerate your soil and add a lot of animal compost or mulch that decays so as to bring back nutrients starting in the soil. Seasonal Garden Care
Pro Tip: Slow-release fertilizers can be placed in your soil as the season begins to provide important nutrients that your plants will uptake throughout the whole growing season. This eliminates the need to continually feed throughout the summer. We wrote a full guide on Raised Garden Bed, visit Step by Step Guide to Build a Raised Garden Bed
2. What to Plant Now in Your Spring Garden
These include seed and plants beds for such cool-season crops as lettuce, peas and spinach or hardy flowers like pansies and primroses. Plant according to the last frost date based on your region. A great way to damage tender new plants is by planting outside of their frost date. Seasonal Garden Care
For Example: One of our readers planted her veggie seeds too early last spring and lost them to a late frost. The result? Poor girl had to start all over again,… replanting everything… The timing of gardening in spring is everything. Refer to local planting calendars as you do your timing here.
3. Making Use Of Pest Control
In the spring is when you want to do barriers and bring in beneficial insects (like ladybugs) to help with pests before they can become a problem. Early springtime treatments can also spare you the headaches of fully developed summer infestations. Seasonal Garden Care
Summer Gardening: Beating the Heat, Growing Big
Your garden should already be bursting or on its way to being a jungle by the time summer is in full swing. Still, the summer heat presents its own problems and keeping a garden healthy all year long in this season means watering, pest control, and pruning. Seasonal Garden Care
1. Water Watering Tips
Summer may be one of the most difficult times to keep your plants well-watered. It is best to water early in the morning so plants can take up the moisture before the day heats, causing rapid evaporation. Use drip irrigation or soaker hoses to prevent overwatering and help your plants get the deep root watering they desire. Seasonal Garden Care
Pro Tip: Mulching around the base of your plants retains moisture and keeps the soil cool. Read the Grow a Vegetable Garden in Small Spaces Guide for taking some more advance tips.
2. Pruning for Health and Growth
While summer pruning involves trimming plants for shaping, you also use the process to help ensure more robust growth. Rather than going through and lopping off healthy buds, focus on pruning the stems or branches that are dead or diseased as they’ll be the perfect breeding ground for pestilence. This can encourage more new blooms to keep your garden look fresh and lively. Seasonal Garden Care
A Real-World Example: An example of the successful pruning of an overgrown rose bush took place in June when a gardener cut hers back and, lo and behold, by mid-July, it was covered tip to toe with blossoms. Though it is counterintuitive to run during peak growth, pruning in the long run promotes a healthy plant.
Preparing Your Garden for Winter and Rest
Fall is the time of transition, so taking care of your garden in fall is paramount for setting up a smooth run next spring. As the days shorten and the temperature drops it is time to concentrate on packing away, planting for next year and preserving what you have grown. Seasonal Garden Care
1. Bulbs, Cool-Season Vegetables and Planting in Fall
This time is also the right time to plant spring-flowering bulbs like tulips, daffodils and crocuses. Also, it is time to plant some of the sturdier vegetables such as kale, garlic and broccoli that can survive the cooler temperatures. Seasonal Garden Care
Pro Tip: (To protect them from freezing temperatures) Taking this simple step can determine whether or not they are healthy next year.
2. Fall Clean Up- Debris removal and prepping beds
After your summer plants have completed producing, pull any dead plant material and other debris from your garden beds. That can lead to pests and diseases overwintering in your soil. Compost these items to feed your garden in the spring and through summer. Seasonal Garden Care
Real Life Example: However, I heard from a homeowner who told me that she was in the habit of not clearing her garden beds after taking in the harvest and, sure enough, when planting season came around again next spring, insect pests overwintering like mad in all that debris. I made an effort at cleaning up in the fall and voila—it saved my garden space the following year.
Winter Gardening to Keep Things Alive and Other Optimistic Stuff
Winter might be the low season for your garden, but there are still tasks far from negligible to address. Prepping your winter garden is all about covering and tucking your plants in for warmth over the frosty nights and planning your growing season ahead of time. Seasonal Garden Care
1. Protecting Plants from Frost
This is very important especially if you live in an area where the winter season is unpredictable at times. Defend them from the cold by wrapping frost blankets, mulch, or upcycled household items like plastic containers around sensitive plants. Seasonal Garden Care
Pro-Tip: Keep watering your garden during warmer winter day; plants can become extremely dry even when they are supposed to be dormant! For tips on caring for tender plants, have a look at our Vegetable Garden in Small Spaces
2. The Next Growing Season
In winter, there is plenty of time to contemplate over what went well and what was less optimal in the garden. Take notes, look up new plants to try growing and start your next garden layout plan. This is a great time to order those seeds for spring and restock on any garden tools you might need. Seasonal Garden Care
Real-Life Example: A winter gardener prepares her garden layout for the following year with particular care. Thus, it keeps giving her more colorful garden with each passing year. The winter is a great time to do those gardening chores you never quite seem to find the time for.
Conclusion
By learning the basics of seasonal garden care, your garden will be beautiful and healthy no matter what season it is. Every season presents the garden with new jobs, problems and affects, but by planning ahead and nurturing your plants you will make sure that they adapt to every variation. Whether you apply them during spring’s plant if you got spree or when the hubbub dies down for fall, these seasonal strategies guarantee that from year-round you’ll be able to drink in every last ounce of beauty and bounty your garden has to offer. Seasonal Garden Care
Want to get your garden game up a notch? Be sure to read our post about Essential Gardening Tools for Every Season as you prepare!
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