We’re almost at the point in time when some of the seedlings you’ve planted should be going outside. Hardy greens like kale, cabbage, and chard will probably be able to weather the outside temperatures in the next week or two. This means there’s a lot of work to do!
The first thing you need to do is start hardening off your seedlings. This is a long but simple process that ensures your new plants will thrive once they’re in the great outdoors. Now that we’re getting a few days in the high 40s and low 50s (and sometimes warmer), you want to pick a day that’s slightly overcast and warm, with not too much wind. Take your flats or pots of seedlings and place them in a wind-free spot that isn’t in direct sunlight, and let them bask in the natural light for about an hour. Do this at the warmest point of the day, just after noon, if at all possible. Then bring them all back in. Repeat this every day, adding an hour or so a day to the time outside, until your plants have developed stronger stems and secondary leaves.
When the nights are all above freezing, you can leave your seedlings outside. Cover them up, though, because critters like raccoons and mice like to eat those yummy miniature plants. Once the plants are hardened off, you can wait for a nice, overcast day to plant your seedlings into the garden.
Before that, though, you have to prepare your garden. If you’re going to be using buckets and/or bins of any kind, they need to be readied for use. This means cleaning them out, bleaching them (to kill any bacteria that could harm your plants or transfer to them), and then rinsing them thoroughly. Drill, poke, or melt some holes into the bottom of each container. This allows excess water to drain. Some people do it in the bottom of the containers, but I find doing it about an inch above the bottom, along the sides, works best. That way, excess water can still escape, but there’s a “well” below the holes that continues to hold water for the plants on dry days.
Add leaves and punky wood to the bottom of each container, then soil. You can purchase soil at the hardware store, or you can mix cheap fill dirt with manure and fertilizer, and use that. Fill the container to about two inches from the top, and then dig however many holes you need for your seedlings. Check online guides for ideas on how many of a plant will fit into what space, as that’s a huge undertaking and goes beyond the scope of what I’m trying to do in this series of articles. A good place to start is the Square Foot Gardening Foundation. Plant your seedlings in your containers, and you’re done!
Working with a raised bed is very similar. The first year you build a raised bed, you’ll add the leaves and punky wood at the bottom of it, along with yard scraps, shredded newsprint, and plain cardboard. This helps retard grass growing through, and gives fat worms a happy place to play (they make the soil rich for you). The soil goes on top of the bracken, and then you smooth it out and plant your seedlings as with the containers. Just make sure in both cases that the soil is deep enough that your plants aren’t going to have their roots go into dead space (the bracken) when they grow out.
Year two and forward with raised beds, preparation is a little different. I prefer a no-till method for my garden beds, mostly because I don’t have a tiller. I hand-rake my raised beds, pull up any weeds, clear out whatever crop of rocks has grown over the winter, and then add a little fertilizer and good soil. Every year, your raised beds will sink and compact a bit, so it’s important to always add fresh soil to the top, even if it’s just a little bit. If you want to cut down on pulling weeds, cover your entire raised bed(s) with thick cardboard and/or newsprint in the fall, and put black plastic (aka garbage bags) on top of that. Weigh it all down with rocks or bricks or whatever, and in the spring, your soil will warm up quickly and the darkness will have killed off most of the weeds. Remove the plastic and what’s left of the cardboard before planting, of course.
If you’re going to be planting directly into the ground, tilling is probably the best method for preparing your beds. You don’t have to own a tiller. Places like Home Depot will rent you one for a relatively inexpensive fee. Unless you have an acre or more, you can get all your tilling done in one day, and keep the rental time short. Please don’t till grass, though. Not only does it mess up the tiller by getting caught in the tines, you’ll basically just be making a nice area for more lawn to take over again. Remove a layer of sod first, using a flat bladed spade, and lay it off to the side. THEN you can till the dirt underneath, churning it up and loosening it, then raking it smooth and ready for planting.
For in-ground gardens, create areas designed for walking on. This can be done in several ways. You can make hills to plant on in between walk-ways. You can place stepping stones or boards down between rows you use for planting. You can cover the walking areas with black weed barrier, keeping the weeds down and making it clear where to step and not step. Once your plants are in, you don’t want to walk on top of the planting area at all, as it’ll disturb the roots of your plants.