Late winter gardening tips to prep for spring planting

With some stretches of warm temperatures over the last few weeks, gardeners have their brains focusing on spring!

Believe it or not, it’s the perfect time of year to get your gardening efforts in gear!

Here are some late winter gardening tips:

• Spread organic mulch over vegetable gardens and perennial fruit.
• It’s a great time to pot “forced” bulbs.
• Get your garlic and leeks crops started.
• Plan your vegetable garden, and purchase your seeds
• Clean up planting beds and clear them of dead branches, stems and weeds.

During this time, I’ll do research on what I want to grow and where in my planting bed various vegetables will go. This is also the perfect time of year to build new planting beds, raised or not, and get them ready for the coming weeks.

A few other things:

• You can order dormant strawberry plants now. These are often cheaper than buying the potted strawberries in the spring.
• You can plant dormant asparagus crowns now.
• Rhubarb roots are also good for planting now.
• Potatos are also good for planting now in a 6 to 8-inch trench. You can use store bought organic potatoes. Cut them into two-inch chunks with at least one eye.

When we have the warmer days and sunshine, it gets me in the mood for turning some soil, or at least flexing my gardening muscle. Have fun, get outside and enjoy the prep work for the larger spring planting season!