How to prepare your beds for Spring
It’s nearly Springtime in Houston (though it’s beginning to feel like summer) and we’re getting our raised beds ready for all the fun plants of Spring and Summer. We’re talking tomatoes, peppers (my favorite) and eggplant. But first, we need to wake up our soil from it’s winter slumber. Hopefully we’ve all been watering and fertilizing, but you haven’t, that’s okay! Now’s the time to refresh and perk it right up.
Clean out
First we’re cleaning out all the dead, dry, gooey plants that suffered during our last freeze, as well as anything that isn’t performing anymore or, honestly, that you’re just tired of. Look through your garden, if anything is brown, dry, or sad-looking, pull it out. You’ll need that room for new, green, healthy plants. Don’t forget that you can pull out and harvest healthy plants too, if you’re done with them.
Soil
Over time and as you water, the soil level will drop in your garden. It gets compacted from watering, loss through the bottom of the bed, and roots sucking up all the good nutrients. We like to top our gardens off with a mixture of new soil and compost. Our favorites are My Veggie and Herb from The Ground Up and Nature’s Way Leaf-mold Compost. These two products have all the good stuff you need to refresh tired soil. Add it to the top of your garden and mix it in a little. If your soil has gotten hard and compacted, use a shovel to break it up a bit. Roots have a hard time going through compacted soil.
Fertilizer
Once we’ve topped with soil, we like to add a few slow-release, granular fertilizers, like Microlife 624, blood meal, and bone meal. The 624 adds beneficial fungi, microbes, and micronutrients. Blood meal is high in nitrogen, which is great for leaf growth and Bone meal is high in phosphorus, which is great for root and fruit growth. It’s a good idea to mix these into the top few inches with your hands or a shovel.
Then, once we plant our plants, we give it a good drench with a fast-acting liquid like Microlife Ocean Harvest. This let’s the plants begin to immediately take up the nutrients while they wait on the granulars to break down.
Plant
You’re ready to plant! Gather all your favorites, put them in, and watch them grow! This is the season for eggplant, tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers, okra, squash, and melons. I love a winter garden, but I think the Spring/Summer garden is my favorite. Good luck and happy gardening!
