Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
Ready to dive into gardening? Learn about garden preparation and get expert advice on how to start your vegetable garden this spring.
If you are a newbie to gardening and hesitant about garden preparation, then worry no more.
I’m here to ease some of your worries and build your gardening confidence through practice so you, too, can join the masses who get out and grow each season.
Spring Garden Preparation
This spring garden-growing guide comes from years of experience and my passion for the outdoors, which should help guide you in the right direction.
If you have an inherent green thumb or want to experiment, the time is here to put your gardening plans in motion.
Begin by figuring out how and where you will plant your vegetable garden this spring.
If you are planting a garden to grow your food for the first time, I’d recommend starting small and getting your feet wet before you jump right in.
Building up gardening experience over time will lead to a more rewarding experience.
Step 1 – Spring Garden Preparation
The first step before deciding what you will grow in the garden should be picking a good location.
In an earlier post, I talked about growing a garden in a small space if you didn’t have a large area in your yard to get started.
You can plan your vegetables accordingly based on how much space you have and how much sunlight the area gets.
A garden planted with north-south facing rows will get more direct sunlight.
Also, consider other environmental factors in your area.
I live in a farm country, and no matter where I choose to live, I will be surrounded by work fields.
I must remember that my garden could be exposed to pesticide drift.
Pesticide drift means that pesticides used by farmers for pest management in farm fields may drift as vapors and particles in the air or through the soil.
So I will keep my garden as far away from the fields as possible.
However, I also plan to plant a small evergreen border between my garden and the field to keep the drift away.
Gardening Tip- Grow your garden a good distance from Walnut trees as they contain chemicals that can kill your vegetables.
Preparing The Soil For Planting
So now you’ve picked your location and know what you’ll plant.
It’s time to get out there and start getting the area ready. Vegetables will benefit significantly from good soil conditions.
The soil needs to be well-drained and nutrient-rich.
Take a good look to see what’s in the soil in your garden.
If you have sandy soil, you must water it more often.
Use Compost For Garden Preparation
Working in some peat moss or compost will allow for proper drainage but will increase the soil’s water-holding capacity.
Soil with lots of clay will not drain properly.
Working in some compost, even just 4-6 inches deep, will make the soil more porous, allowing better drainage and increased oxygen for the roots.
Compost is an excellent choice for amending any garden, regardless of the soil type.
If you have a compost bin, you can make compost at home in the backyard.
If you have leaves that come down in the fall, add them to your compost heap to break down over the winter to give you dark, nutrient-rich soil.
Many cities offer free compost; check locally to see if yours does by contacting your city hall.
You are usually required to do the work yourself, such as bagging it or putting it in a container, but it’s free!
Free compost means that’s one less thing you need to pay for, and you can designate the money for something else for your gardening project.
Using Manure For Gardening
Manure can also be used to improve your soil. It can be purchased from garden centers or ask a local farmer for some.
If it is obtained from a farm, it needs to be well-dried out before it can be used; otherwise, it can have the opposite effect and harm your garden.
Manure will give the best results if applied a few weeks before planting, giving it time to settle in.
Ashes Add Nutrients To The Soil
If you heat your house with wood, you can turn in some of the ashes, adding potassium to the soil.
Potassium encourages rapid growth and can help to prevent disease.
Potassium can also improve the flavour of vegetables as well.
Only a tiny amount of ashes must be used, and this should be avoided when plants such as blueberries that require slightly acidic soil are being grown.
It does not need to be applied regularly as potassium is a slow-diminishing nutrient.
Transplanting Seedlings
By this point, you should have already started your seeds, and they should be well on their way to transitioning into the world.
If you’ve grown your seedlings indoors, the next step is preparing them for outdoors.
Plants started indoors can experience transplant shock if taken directly from indoors and planted outside.
This shock could be enough to kill the plant.
Exposing Seedlings To The Environment
Slowly exposing the plants to temperature fluctuation is referred to as hardening off.
Expose the plants gradually to the environment; the more significant the temperature difference, the slower the process should be.
You can start by placing them outside for a few hours during the day, then maybe into the evening.
Then, if the nights are getting warmer, leave them out overnight, but not in the garden yet.
If there is a threat of frost, move them inside for the night.
You want to disturb the roots as little as possible at this point.
This process can also help with not planting too early, which could cause severe repercussions and heartbreak if you lose your seedlings.
Planting Early Can Cost You Extra
I remember multiple customers who came into the greenhouse looking to buy or re-buy their plants because they planted too soon!
I can’t wait to get planting, and I look out my window every morning, hoping to see green grass.
It is too early right now, and even using the traditional May 2-4 weekend (in our climate)as a guideline may be too soon.
We often get just one more frost when we all think the cold weather is gone.
It’s better to be safe than sorry and hold off slightly.
They say the early bird gets the worm, but not in this case.
Replacing your plants is not precisely cost-effective for anyone’s garden budget.
Watering Your Spring Garden
Don’t forget that your garden needs to be watered; carrying a watering can back and forth can be daunting.
Planting closer to your home makes it easier to access a garden hose.
Also, using a garden hose nozzle ensures that you do not have to walk back and forth as far wasting time and energy.
If you have a rain barrel on your property, not only will it save money on your water bill this summer, but you will also give your plants rainwater and not tap water.
Using Tap Water For Garden Preparation
When using municipal water, fill up jugs of tap water and let them sit open for 24 hours, allowing the added chlorine to evaporate.
Chlorine can negatively affect the microorganisms in the soil, harming beneficial organisms that can help to fight off pests and diseases.
Vegetable gardening is advantageous when food from your garden ends up on your dinner plate, but it can also be time-consuming.
Stay Positive And Watch Your Garden Grow
Learning how to grow a garden in your backyard takes time.
With proper research and trial and error, you can have an abundance of vegetables and herbs to make tasty meals in your kitchen.
Planning and preparing your garden correctly will get you off to a good start, and remember to start small if this is new to you.
Don’t get discouraged right away if your first garden doesn’t work out; trial and error is the name of the game.
A well-prepared garden can be a great money-saving tool for your budget if you have time and patience.
Discussion: What are some other ways you prepare your garden?
Please leave your comments below.
Thanks for reading,
Mr. CBB
Post Contribution By: Katrina is a horticulture graduate with over 10 years of experience with landscaping and greenhouse production. Katrina runs her Landscaping Services in Southwestern Ontario.
thank you for the tips! I see your seedlings are down to 1 plant per bag, in Mr CBB’s egg carton seedlings there were a dozen seedlings per unit, so when do you weed out? Do you keep them all while you do the temperature adaptation phase then only keep the biggest one? I read if you leave seedlings too close for too long they will stop growing because their roots have no space. What size do you know a seedling is viable?
Hi Pauline, seedlings do not necessarily require thinning out. It all depends how you choose to sow them. If you choose to sow them in an open tray then yes thinning out will be required. If you sow them in a divided tray or egg cartons like Mr. CBB did then they can be planted as is from the tray. Each cell becomes its own plant. Planting 2-3 seeds per cell or even just 1 if they are big seeds, is enough. To determine which seedlings are stronger than others….any seedlings that appear to have stretched and are flimsy and lanky will make weak plants. Does that make sense?
I did not know that about Walnut trees. Not that we have any, but it’s still good to know. We’re going to be building our own compost pit for the first time this year. We have fund that we can get our soil tested at the local extension office and they can tell us exactly the composition make up we need to best foster a good garden.
Having your soil tested is great thing to do. I have heard the term local extension office a few times lately, is that American? Here in Ontario I am most familiar with sending samples to the University of Guelph. When taking your sample, take multiple samples from the area you are testing and not all from the same spot, also avoid using any kind of galvinized container as it can alter the soil composition. Come back and let us know your results and what recommendations they gave you.
We call it an extension office in Florida too. They seem to fill a bunch of random county responsibilities and soil testing is one of them. Our soil (if you can even call it that) is incredibly sandy and chock full of shells since we live so close to the beach. We’re thinking of trying a raised bed to avoid the sand, but missed the prime growing season this year.
Personally, I’m not concerned about pesticides. While I don’t use them personally (a little dish soap mixed in water in a spray bottle kills insects on plants just as well as chemicals pesticides and is a lot cheaper), I don’t go all “it’s the end of the world!” when I’m exposed to them. When I was working in greenhouses, I was practically bathing in pesticides.
Exposure to pesticides is certainly a personal preference. My kids get exposed to enough harmful things in this world and I like to control what I can. What kind of work did you in the greenhouse? Thanks for stopping in to read it 🙂
Great post! Definitely saving this as we want to start a garden soon.
Do you have any plans in mind yet? What would you like to grow?
I would like to start growing a few things on our balcony. Maybe just an herb garden to start.
I bought a great little live Christmas tree last year. When I set it up in the house it dried out no matter how much I watered it. When Christmas was over, I moved it outside hoping to use it again next year. It went brown and all the needles fell off. I can’t tell if it is dead or will come back.
Scratch a tiny bit of the bark off on the trunk of you see any green then it has a chance if its all brown its dead.
What kind of growing containers do you plan to use on your balcony?
Thank you so much, Katrina, for the wonderful info! This year we’ll be planting our first big veggie garden, and the tips you’ve listed here are very helpful. Thanks for sharing!
Loved the post!!! Our back yard is at the bottom of a hill and stays wet after a rain. I put in raised beds and filled with top soil for my perennials. I top it up every year with compost as much as I can. I think if I had the space I’d like to try square foot gardening for veggies… ever try that???? It interests me and I’d love to try it…..
I didn’t know about walnut trees either and do have one in my back yard. Excellent advice as usual Katrina!!
Great post! We had a garden for a few years, then we took it down a couple years ago, after my little one was born, as we hadn’t the time to maintain it anymore. I had oodles of tomatoes and beans every year, but I could never get anything else to grow before the rabbits and other animals got to it. I remember I was about to pick some beautiful red lettuce I had growing, then I thought it just needed one more day or two. But obviously the bunny didn’t think so. We’re looking at starting up a garden again this year. Any tips for keeping away cute little bunnies from eating all my veggies?
I keep telling myself to get started with gardening but it always seems to get put on the back burner. I have actually taken an interest in hydroponics. It looks really interesting and would be a much better fit as we do not have the room for gardening.
Love this list and these tips but I wish I didn’t have such a seriously black thumb 🙂
Getting your soil tested is the single BEST suggestion offered here. That has paid off for us in spades. We had a fungus that was killing our lawn – took a chunk of soil down to the local garden shop, they tested it for free, told us what the problem and cure was and $22 later our lawn was up and running again. Our neighbor had the same problem – we told him what to do, but he was sure he had to replace his entire lawn – which he did to the tune of several $1000. Too bad ’cause we got ours fixed for $20.
Nonetheless, we are still at a loss as to how to get rid of the rabbits that are hell-bent on destroying our yard and veggie garden (short of shooting them – which spouse will not let me do). We don’t have dogs anymore and can’t ’cause grandchild is allergic to them so we need another solution. However, for those of you who don’t have kids that are allergic to dogs – they are the best rabbit deterrent out there! (and no, our dogs never ate them – they just chased them out of the yard).
Great tips shared by you in order to prepare our own Garden. I am going to build the garden in a small area, so I surely will keep these things in mind