Gardeners yearn for the first signs of spring, when snow or brown grass gives way to fresh green shoots, and it's time to take out the gardening gloves and shovels again. Spring is the premier season for vegetable gardening. Whether you are planting for the first time or extending your early season harvest, these tips will help ensure your spring vegetable gardening success.
Site Preparation
Select a site for your spring vegetable garden that receives the most sunlight possible through the course of the day. If this is the first time you are gardening at the selected site, add finished compost and well-rotted manure to the soil just prior to planting, suggests Keith C. Hansen, Extension Horticulturalist with the Texas A&M University East Texas Gardening program. Have your soil tested by the local Cooperative Extension office and add any needed specific nutrients or lime to adjust pH as necessary. Consider building raised beds to further enhance your garden site. Raised beds dry out and warm up faster than gardens on flat ground, which gives spring vegetables a significant head start, advises the Arizona Master Gardener Manual.
Start Seeds Indoors
Select cool-weather crops like carrots, peas, radishes, turnips, beets, broccoli and lettuce for the earliest spring harvest, advises the North Carolina State University Halifax County Cooperative Extension Center. Then determine which seeds can be planted directly in the garden soil and which need to be started indoors under plant lights. Starting seeds indoors at regular intervals also allows you to plant successive crops in the same garden space to maximize your spring vegetable harvest, suggests the Arizona Master Gardener Manual. Check with your local Cooperative Extension office to determine the earliest dates to transfer your seedlings outdoors; most direct-seeded spring vegetable crops, such as radishes, peas and spinach can be planted as soon as the ground can be worked, even if a few frosts are anticipated.
Plan Overwintering Vegetables
The earliest spring vegetable garden harvests can often be obtained by overwintering crops for spring picking. Garlic must be planted in the fall, then watered and fertilized in spring for mid-summer harvest. Spinach and Oriental greens can be seeded in the ground in late fall and will sprout as soon as the snows clear. Overwintering varieties of cabbages, salad greens and carrots can be planted mid-summer, then placed under the protection of a cold frame or hoop house for late winter and early spring harvest before your main spring crops have even been planted, suggests Master Gardener Valerie Jean Rose of the Washington State University Cooperative Extension program.
References
- Texas A&M University, East Texas Gardening: Success With Spring Vegetable Gardens
- Arizona Master Gardener Manual: Intensive Gardening Methods
- North Carolina State University Halifax County Cooperative Extension: Gardening Tips---Planting the Spring Vegetable Garden
- Washington State University Extension: Extending the Growing Season---Fall and Overwintering Crops
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