Thursday, March 03, 2011

Spring Garden Cleanup


Yesterday it was really beautiful out and so I went out in the garden and did a bit of a spring cleanup.  In front of our house we have a (very small) garden in the ground which is all decorative - mostly perennials and bulbs and then I stick in a few annuals every year.  I didn't take any photos of that but did clean it out pretty well.   Our back patio where we do all our veggie gardening is bricked over so everything is in containers.  Most of them are self-watering containers, including these ones that I made out of big Ikea bins which work pretty well.  I had mostly cleaned out the containers in the fall but I went back and removed the leaves and debris which had accumulated, loosened up the soil, and pulled out any large roots that were still in there.  I was tempted to go right ahead and plant a bunch of seeds but since we are now having another cold snap I decided it would be better to wait a week or so.  There are still a few things growing in the garden from last fall, though, including the parsley you can see above.


There's also a few spinach plants...


Some scraggly arugula...


And some swiss chard.  I'm guessing all of these will grow a bit more as the weather warms up and then I will see if there's anything worth harvesting.  There's actually also a few lettuce plants that overwintered that seem pretty tough - not sure if they will be at all edible - and some scallions which I think should be OK.


Finally, I have a big pot with several kinds of herbs, but the thyme and sage had died off over the winter so I picked up some new plants and stuck them in with the surviving chives, oregano, marjoram and rosemary.  Having fresh herbs on hand all the time is one of my favorite parts of having a garden (especially at times like this when there isn't a whole lot else going on on in the garden) so I am glad to have the herb pot fully stocked again.

How about you?  Is it warm enough where you live to start cleaning out your garden and thinking about planting seeds?  What are you planning to grow this year?

3 comments:

  1. I have to clean out all my starter pots and get my tomatoes, peppers, and basil started this weekend. Several of my "winter" plants are about to go to seed, so I'll be starting new lettuce, spinach and beet seeds this weekend, too. I have to go through all my seed packets and see what I'm supposed to be planting that I forgot about!

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  2. We will have a garden again this year but no I haven't done anything :( Everything here is so soggy and now we are getting cold weather but I am ready for spring. I do have my chives up and they are beautiful in a bed with lavender. I have some Kale from last year coming up.This year I really need to amend my beds and my son asked yesterday if we'll have zucchini so that's one thing I'll do.

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  3. Just discovered your blog, it's lovely. I live in Paris, in an apartment and although we're lucky enough to have almost 30 meters of balcony, we don't have a garden. We do have a nice assortment of plants and the children and I just (re)potted herbs - some old, some new. It's warm enough here now that they can stay out. (The herbs, not the offspring!) And we also just planted delphiniums in pots inside as a sort of educational project. The garden shop woman promised that we could plant them already, keep them indoors for a while and that they might even be blooming by June. Would love to see some posts on gardening in small spaces - I'm thinking of planting lettuces and tomatoes on the balcony this year.

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