I’m watching the snow melt outside. It’s SLOWER than watching paint dry. Ah well. It’ll be gone soon, and then I can get to work on outdoor stuff. For now, it’s time to plan the outdoor garden space, and decide which things are getting direct sowed. In other words, which things go right into the ground (or raised bed/outdoor container/plant tower/etc) versus those that get started indoors because they’re too delicate for the cooler weather?
The first seeds that I’ll be direct sowing will be radishes, beets, carrots, peas, and spinach. These are all hardy crops, and they like the cold and damp that come along with early spring and late fall. They’re also staples around here. Well, not the beets so much. I like them, but most of the rest of the family doesn’t. That’s fine; more for me.
You’ll note that the beets and carrots and radishes are all what we call “root crops.” This means the edible part is under the ground. Generally speaking, for early spring crops you want to look for ones that say, “Plant seed outdoors as soon as the soil can be worked.” This means that a late frost in the spring won’t destroy your plants, and that’s a very good thing when you live in the northern part of America, or any part of Canada. Most root crops can be planted early, but always check the seed packets (or online if you don’t have the packets).
Before you can sow seeds directly into the soil outdoors (regardless of whether it’s in the ground, in a raised bed, or in a container of some kind), you have to prepare the garden bed. This takes several stages, and is best started as soon as you can get into your garden area. I can’t yet, because we still have snow deep enough to cause issues and I’m not shoveling out the garden. You can speed this up by covering your garden beds with black plastic each fall right before the snow flies. This keeps down on weeds, and also allows the beds to warm up earlier. Once your beds are defrosted and workable, you can begin planting. This is one of the main joys of any kind of raised bed.
Prepping the Garden Bed
First, you will need to clean up/out your beds. I never bother to do so in the autumn, because I want the leaves and sticks that fall into the beds to compost over the winter, helping out the soil. This means every spring, I need to pull out detritus from the fall and winter. You can do this by hand (use gloves, because the oddest things can make it into your garden beds by accident and you don’t want to cut or hurt yourself) or with a rake or hoe. If you have larger beds, a hoe works very well. Once you’ve pulled out any excess vegetation, you just run the hoe or rake over the surface of the bed, not so much digging in the dirt as pulling up any weeds that might be there and getting out all the junk.
Next comes amending the soil. This is where you add things to your soil to make it fresh and rich for whatever you’re about to plant. Most of the time, you just need a bit of compost (you can buy Zoo Poo in bags, or pick up some well composted horse or cow manure from local farms). If your soil is very clumpy or hard, you may want to add a bit of sand or coconut coir. There are several good websites about soil amendment, and it’s a lot more in-depth than I’m willing to get in short articles here on the Vine. Seedsavers is the best place to start, and you can branch out from there.
We have bunnies, and so I will put the bunny poop into the garden after smashing it up and mixing it with other soil. It’s incredibly rich, and rarely has any weeds in it, and unlike other types of manure, it can go right into the garden. Manure from chickens, cows, horses, and other animals should be given at least one year to age and cool down before being used in your garden. A great way to use bunny poop throughout your growing season is to add a couple of cups of the poops to a watering can (reserved for that purpose), and then fill it with water. Let it sit overnight, then use that “bunny tea” to water your plants. Be sure to water at the roots, and NOT on the leaves, as any kind of fertilizer can burn leaves.
Once your soil is in good shape, you should figure out what your plan is for weeds. Using weed barrier is one good way to avoid weeds. It’s a dark cloth, and you can usually pick up cheap versions at the dollar store or local Agway. While weed barrier doesn’t stop weeds entirely, it does make it much harder for them to grow, and that’s a good thing. You lay it down, and use long “staple like” spikes to hold it in place (or bricks, rocks, whatever you have on hand). Cut small Xs into the cloth where you want to put your plants in, and either direct sow or put your seedlings into it. As they grow, the corners of the X will sort of drape up the sides of the plant, protecting it from some pests. Black plastic garbage bags are another method, though if it gets very warm where you are you can actually cause the roots to be damaged from the heat.
The last thing you need to do before actually planting anything in the ground, is figure out where it’s all going to go. This needs to be figured out prior to any planting, because there are some plants that can’t be put next to one another. Any shuffling of containers or beds needs to be done BEFORE you go through all the work of planting. Draw out a plan of your garden, either by hand or on the computer. It doesn’t need to be perfect, just close enough for government work. Once you have that, make a dozen copies that you can play with, and work in pencil. Sit down and figure out what simply cannot be near what else, and place those plants first. Then you can fill in the holes as you go along.
Remember, too, that many plants are only in the ground for a small amount of time. I know that the bed I use for my carrots and beets will eventually end up with some tomatoes and maybe a late crop of greens in it after the carrots and beets are gone. Where you plant one thing, you can then plant another when the first plant is harvested. This is known as succession planting, and it can be very productive. As an example, I usually switch my tomatoes and beans and peas around in space each year, because they don’t get the same diseases, and they take and return different things from the soil.
Once the beds are prepped and you know where everything is going, make some stakes to mark where your plants go. Until they’re near maturity, a lot of plants look pretty much like every other plant. It’s easy to get them mixed up, especially early on. I tend to pick up plastic “use once” stakes from the dollar store, and I write on them in black marker. At the end of the season, I toss them. When planting in seed pots for starting indoors, I use wooden popsicle sticks and just write on them directly. If you know you’ll be doing this every year, you can splurge and pick up special markers like these or these!
Direct seed your early crops, and then wait breathlessly for those early green shoots to poke out of the soil. From that moment on, you’ll need to keep your eye out for critters interested in eating your garden!