How to Get The Garden Ready for Spring Planting Donna Larson, February 4, 2025 It’s still Winter, but you’re itching to get started on your vegetable garden. We know about starting seeds, but what else can you do now to get your garden ready for spring planting? How to Get the Garden Ready Here’s a list of what I’m actually doing now to be garden ready after my last frost: Clean Out Garden Beds Amend Soil Compost / Vermicompost Clean Up Walkways Assess the Layout Gather Garden Tools and Supplies Tarp Grassy Areas Trim Berry Bushes Fertilize Fruit Trees Take Inventory of Seeds Make a Plan for the Season Clean Out Garden Beds This is the perfect time to clean out your garden beds so that you can start with a clean slate in early spring. What has the winter frost killed back? Take out any dead plant debris and pull all of the weeds that you find now, while they’re in their dormant state. The cold killed all of my warm weather plants, such as tomatoes and peppers, leaving rotting fruit and dead stems behind. I am loading all of it up and carting it over to my chickens. They’ll make quick work of breaking down all that vegetation, giving me lots of manure to use later back in the garden. Garden Ready Soil This is a good time to add an inch or two of compost to your garden beds. For me, I need to add more than that. My raised beds have sunken quite a bit, and I don’t think that I added much to them last year. We grow in at least two seasons each year, so I’m sure my soil is void of nutrition at this point. I’m purchasing a pallet of bagged garden soil this year to added to my raised beds. Is it pricey? Yes. But so are groceries. I want my vegetable plants to really produce this year. I can add a few inches of soil with just three 1.5 cubic feet bags per bed. Additionally, I’ll add a bag or two of mushroom compost bringing diversity for the soil life. Later, as I plant, I’ll amend the space around each plant with other organic fertilizers such as blood meal and kelp. Last, I’m topping all beds with a layer of leaf litter. I have a push lawn mower with a collection bag to chop up and gather dead leaves. This has been one of my favorite investments for my garden. If you aren’t sure what to add to your garden, then it’s a good idea to get a soil test. Then you’ll know exactly which soil amendments will benefit your garden. Getting garden ready starts with healthy soil. Address The Compost Pile / Vermicomposting Compost helps to correct the soil structure of your garden if you have loose or compact soils. Basically, whatever is wrong with your soil texture, compost can help to create a healthy soil for your garden plants. Sandy soil is helped by compost and so is clay soil. Compost is amazingly diverse that way. Admittedly, I’m no expert composter. Jenny has great experience on creating her own compost, but me? I know what to do, I just usually get bored with it for fast compost. I prefer the long game for compost, so I will get out there and turn over what I’ve created. I’ll water it, and add to it, and forget about it again for a few months. As I take it apart, I’m sure I’ll find some good organic material that has been broken down in the bottom that I can use. I’ll scrape that out, and add a little here and there to the perennial plants that I feel need it most. I’m also going to work on a composting system with either buckets or pvc pipes right in my garden beds. I’m not totally sure exactly how this will look, but I have some ideas to try, and I’ll share the results with you later. Lastly, I’m going to give vermicomposting my best shot this year. I have some large seven gallon buckets to work with, and I’m following the directions of some popular online educators to get the ball rolling on this. I hope that by the time my garden plants need nutrition this year, I’ll be able to feed them with a handful of homegrown worm castings. Clean the Walkways Not only do my beds need attention, but all of my garden walkways are covered in dead leaves, dead Spanish Needle, or green weeds. I’m pulling as much as I can, leaving a few stray mint shoots for fun, and hoping to keep the walkways weed free with a fresh layer of mulch this year. If I’m unable to catch the local tree-trimmers to ask for mulch, I’ll get a few truckloads from my local landscape shop inexpensively. Our county waste facility also offers free mulch, but it’s often littered with trash. Check with your local waste facilities to see if this is a good option for you. Also, look into Chip Drop for free or cheap mulch options. Other options that you may like to help get your walkways in the garden ready are: pebble or rock weed-blocking landscape fabric ground cover as a living mulch patio stones Assess the Layout My garden design is forever changing. Every year, I look back at what worked and what didn’t. This year, I know that my in ground rows didn’t produce very well. I also didn’t like where my fruit trees were, scattered throughout my property. The cows and sheep got out and ate some of the trees. My sand mountain that is the soil we live on ate much of the compost from the in ground garden. My solution is to convert my in ground half of the garden into a mini food forest space. I have had most of it tarped since Fall to kill back weeds and grass. I’m going to grow most of my vegetables in the raised beds, and I’ve moved all of my herbaceous perennials to the food forest space. I have a small collection of berries, stone fruits, and more in that half of the garden now. The whole thing is getting sheet mulched to keep weeds down as I add in shrubs and ground cover so there’s no bare soil. My point here is that I was overwhelmed with the amount of garden space that I had to maintain, so I made a change. I don’t know if this will work, but I know that it’ll require less hands on time during my busiest season on the farm. Look at what worked for you in the previous growing season, and change what didn’t. Maybe that means paring down, or adding shade, or scrapping the whole garden and starting over. Do what works for you to keep you happy and coming back to the garden. Gather Garden Tools and Supplies If you haven’t already during your clean up, collect all of your garden goodies. Those seed trays that got left out, spades and hori hori knives that remained in a harvested bed need to be put away. Baskets for collecting tomatoes, gloves to protect your hands, and all of those miscellaneous garden items that you thought you lost should all find their proper homes. I’m horrible about this because my garden shed is far from my garden. To combat this, we hope to build a garden shed right next to my garden. I want something that can house my tiller and mower, weed cloth, row cover, and all the odds and ends that I’ve collected over the years. Additionally, go through your organic pest control solutions and your organic fertilizers. What needs to be replaced? Combining like items with like so that you start the season organized will help you achieve success in your garden. Tarp Grassy Areas If you have a garden bed that has had grass creep in, now is a great time to smother it out with tarps. Make sure that you wet that area well first, then cover it with a thick, black tarp. You’ll need boards or sandbags, something heavy, to weigh down the edges holding the tarp in place. Let it sit for a minimum of six weeks to kill back any grass in the garden. When you remove the tarp, you should find no live vegetation. The dead grass on the soil surface will act as a mulch to plant in making your garden ready to work in. Trim Perennial Berry Bushes This is the time of year to prune back your berry bushes. Blueberries and blackberries in particular will appreciate a trim before they begin to leaf out for the season. For me, the biggest chore is removing the dead plants from between the blackberry bushes. Figuring out which canes are dead and which ones are new can be difficult. Salt in my Coffee has a fantastic overview on what to cut and what to leave behind to flourish in the upcoming season. Fertilize Fruit Trees In addition to getting the garden ready, this is the time to freshen up those fruit trees. I won’t lie. Fruit trees are the thing that I’m not really good at. There have been bountiful years and dismal years, and the good years were the reward for my paying attention to the trees. I will be adding fresh cardboard, topped with compost, and then a covering of wood mulch to all of my fruit trees and berry bushes. The compost is my first step to fertilize those perennial trees. I’m also using Berry Tone and Citrus Tone as applicable, and a little Espoma Plant Tone granular fertilizer to the rest, like my apples. I’m just using a little sprinkle as directed on each bag so that I don’t overdo it. Take Inventory of Seeds Don’t purchase anything until you know what you already have. Get organized, toss the oldest stuff if you must, and figure out what you want or need for the spring garden. The most popular vegetable seeds often sell out ahead of the season, so this is the best time to place seed orders. When you decide which seeds you need, go to a supplier in your region first. Southern growers, for example, might appreciate Johnny’s, Hoss, or Seed-the-Stars for heat-tolerant varieties. Make a Plan to Get Garden Ready Finally, you’ve taken steps to get your garden ready for the upcoming season, you’ve created new beds, and you’re ready to fill them with all of your favorite vegetable plants. Now, make a plan. Figure out when to start seeds in trays, when to direct sow, transplanting, etc. Do you want to succession sow some crops so that they can be harvested in waves instead of all at once? Clyde’s Garden Planner is the perfect starting place for all garden-lovers, no matter your growing zone. Write it down. If you don’t have a garden planner to keep track of all the tasks associated with your garden, then simply write it down on a calendar. Personally, I like to spend a little time at the beginning of the season, jotting down when I can expect to start seeds, transplant seedlings, harvest, and flip beds for a second crop. Seedtime helps me achieve the scheduling aspect of the garden chores for the spring season and beyond. Putting it on the calendar helps me see what else will be happening then. Scheduling conflicts like out of town trips or just a busy calving season will be easily spotted. The last thing that I need in order to be successful in the garden is to overwhelm my farm calendar with too much at once. Vacations don’t happen during harvest season, am I right? Summary of Getting the Garden Ready for Spring I hope that you can see that these are simple steps that anyone can take to get a head start on their growing season. Making a plan to get the garden ready is the best way to satisfy the planting-urge before Spring is here so that your gardening season will be a success. Happy Gardening! Donna @ Hazel Belle Farm Donna and her family have been homesteading for most of their 20+ years together in some shape or fashion. She currently lives on their 20 acre farm where they grow as much food as possible. What started as a just a few laying hens, has grown into large gardens, pastured poultry, pork, and lamb. They are continuously evolving their small farm to not suit their family’s needs, but also providing to their local community. Donna’s favorite part of the family farm is her self-built micro-dairy, where she gets to love on dairy cows while serving her local community. Milking, cheesemaking, and processing dairy have become the soul of their homestead and the center of their farm. Gardening Homesteading