There are only three days until spring and I am super excited. I have been working so hard recently to get the garden ready for the next stage in its journey. I have also been working hard to try and make things easy to manage going into a season of busy. I figure if I have systems and routines in place the garden – apart from bursts of high activity should just require a bit of casual maintenance throughout the growing season.
This relies on me sticking to the plan and not being distracted. The garden is divided into 5 groups that ideally should be tended once a week on its specific day, with the paths hoed, the beds weeded and every other week a liquid feed given to the plants. Any other things like tying in tendrils or pinching out laterals also get done then. Of course harvesting will be done daily as a perfectly ripe tomato probably wouldn’t last so well for another week.
The problem is, I get lulled into a false sense of ‘it’s alright’ and while to the casual observer it is ‘alright’. But without the regular weekly attention that, when in control only takes about 20 minutes, the whole system flip flops into a boom and bust situation where I have to spend hours putting right what should never have happened as weeds take over and plants sprawl after sudden growth spurts. And then I kick myself.
So this season there are no excuses – the garden is in a good place, and it is up to me to keep it that way. So as a point of accountability – check out my short video to see the state of the garden as it stands ready for the growing season.
From this point on the garden should only flourish with desired growth and improvements. Exciting times ahead.
Come again soon – Spring is almost here!
Sarah the Gardener : o)
NB: The video contains seeds gifted to me, but they didn’t ask me to talk about them – I just did because I love them! So not an ad or sponsored.
We have 18° in the south today. A good omen
Hopefully it is good, although spring can be all over the place so who knows! : o)
I really love your sectional rotation guide – I tried it during lockdown which worked brilliantly, but with going back to work, it hasn’t worked so well…. however – I’m already noticing the warmer weather, the brighter mornings and longer evenings, so there is hope yet!
It is so good to have those longer moments in the day. My hardest bit is convincing myself to go out there and hoe or pick out tiny weeds that can hardly be seen each week, but if I don’t the 10 min job is always much bigger the following week – weeds grow like… weeds! : o)
That seems like an early spring. Our autumn arrives three weeks later.
I don’t think I could wait until the spring equinox! But I don’t mind calling summer over by the autumn equinox! Besides our climate tells us now is the time to start seeds and everyone here calls the 1st of Sept the 1st day of spring. So why fight it! : o)
I’m thoroughly enjoying reading your posts. I’m in the US and trying my hardest to have a successful garden while we are going into fall, you are giving me plenty of ideas for next spring to make my garden more successful!
Thanks so much. I hope you find some ideas, and maybe learn from a few of my mistakes and have a fabulous season next time. : o)
Sarah, I so enjoyed seeing you giddy with excitement of the Spring season and beginning of gardening. I too get that way every spring. It’s been a good year here in Nebraska even with the drought conditions that we’ve had all summer. All my gardens are built to conserve water and the rain water tank will service the garden almost the entire summer. Just this last week was the first time I had to use city water for the remaining plants in the garden. I so enjoy your garden videos and website posts during my winter months. It gives me inspiration and hope for the coming spring.
It looks like you have done a lot of planning for the coming garden season. I really want to keep better records of my gardens. I always start off good in the spring but by midseason I sort of forget to keep the records updated. Hopefully next year will be a year of better records.
Have a great day of excitement in the greenhouse and garden.
Nebraska Dave
Urban Farmer
I hope we have enough water to get through this season, it feels like there has been enough rain to fill the tanks so hopefully. I’m not that great at record keeping either. That’s why I blog, so I can look back over what I’ve done. Enjoy the rest of your season. : o)