gardening

How to Get Your Garden Ready for Spring - 3 Steps

How to Get Your Garden Ready for Spring - 3 Steps

One of our favorite ways to become more independent and prepared is through gardening. 

With Spring already here (or just around the corner for some), it’s already time to prepare your garden—in fact, we had a great time out planting peas in containers with the kids last night!

So let's dive in to 3 easy steps to get your soil ready for planting.
 
Why Soil Prep?

A few years ago, we noticed our garden was producing less and less each year. We’d been blindly adding organic material to our soil each Spring, but we’d been neglecting the bigger picture, and it was showing in our crops (or lack thereof).

With one simple practice we’re covering today, we turned things around even quicker than expected—it got rid of the frustration and brought back the fun of gardening.

Proper soil prep helps ensure your plants get the nutrients they need to grow strong and healthy—so here’s how to do it right!

Key Steps for Soil Prep:

1- Test Your Soil: 
Before adding anything to your soil, it’s important to know what it needs. Guessing is a great way to waste money, but a simple soil test can tell you about pH levels and nutrient deficiencies and take the guesswork out of gardening. 

For about $40, you can get a detailed analysis of your soil in about 6-8 days—without even leaving your home! From there, you’ll know exactly what your soil needs to help your plants thrive for your best harvest yet.

Soil Amendments

2- Amend Your Soil:
Depending on your soil test results, you might need to add cinderite, organic matter, or specific fertilizers to balance out nutrients. Add the right nutrients to balance your soil and give your plants the ideal environment for healthy growth.

3- Till Your Soil?
The long-debated question: to till or not to till. Whichever way you choose, consider the pros and cons in your specific situation—if your soil test shows a strong need for amendment, come up with a long-term plan of how to get your soil where you need it to be. This may include “low-till” methods in the initial phases to incorporate your soil amendments. 

Don’t have a garden yet? OR maybe your soil has issues that are going to take time to address? Consider raised bed gardening.

Raised bed or square foot gardening can be a more convenient, approachable, and simpler way to garden—we love it for a variety of reasons even on larger-scale farms. You can build your own or purchase a kit (use code HOMESTEADSERIES10OFF to get $10 off), but either way will require some simple assembly so now’s the time to get those beds ready, too!

PRO TIP: Start your soil prep a few weeks before you plan to plant. That probably means today! This gives any organic materials time to integrate and stabilize within the soil.

If you’ve done all the prep work and you’re ready to start planting right now, be sure to check out the free SeedTime garden calendar app to help you know what and when to plant based on your location.

SeedTime takes all of the guess work out of prepping, planting, and harvesting with a custom plan for each crop—and it’s free! You can get it here.

We want to hear from you—join the Homestead Community right here. We’re ready to help in your homesteading and preparedness journey so don’t hesitate to get in touch on any topic you'd like to discuss!

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