Post date: May 14, 2020 10:37:44 PM
Uma Sashikanth
I am looking at the weather and the long spell of sun and no rain. The soil will warm up earlier than expected, which is good news for perennials to sprout right back. To direct sow, temps need to hit 60s and stay there.
What can you do in the next 4 weeks before then?
1. Begin seedlings in trays, right outside in a shaded area of your garden. Cover them up with plastic sheet on particularly cold nights.
2. Keep the seedlings moist. They will fail if they dry out. You can simply plug them into the soil in 4 weeks.
3. Begin chilies, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and all your annual vegetables in seedling trays.
4. Spring clean your garden. Remove the dry leaves and heavy mulch and enable your soil to warm up. Keep a small layer of mulch to preserve moisture.
5. Your compost piles will become active. Bring them together, turn them, add manure, soil, EM or any activator like LAB to enable them to be ready to be spread on soil.
6. Sow ground covers and nitrogen fixers. Before the leaves come and shade your yard, sow clovers, peas, cow peas, methi and such nitrogen fixers. You can chop and drop them in 4 weeks. Green manuring is very valuable for the summer garden. Or let them be as edible ground covers.
7. Collect all your seed packets, sort and label and plan to sow them all. Don’t keep seeds in boxes to age. You will find a place for everything :)
8. If you like to make nutritive additives like biochar, wood ash, leaf mulch, compost, this is the time to collect your materials and prepare to apply then in 4 weeks.
Enjoy the spring :)