56February 1, 2012
Are you ready for spring? I think we are all ready for spring to arrive. But are you ready for all the things you will need to do to get ready for gardening. The wheelbarrow had a flat tire last fall. You put the wheelbarrow away for the season and you figured you would get the tire fixed in the spring. Why not take the tire off the wheelbarrow now and get it repaired and then you will be ready to use the wheelbarrow as soon as spring arrives.
The fertilizer spreader was put away late in the fall. Did you clean it up? Leaving fertilizer residue in the spreader will cause it to malfunction in the spring if the fertilizer causes rust. Get the spreader out now and clean it up and apply oil to the metal parts.
How many times have you gone to start the lawn mower or the gas powered weed trimmer and it won’t start? Now would be a good time to get those gas powered pieces of equipment into the servicing dealer and get those tools the maintenance that allows the equipment to start on the first attempt of the spring.
How much mulch did you use last year and what type of mulch did you use? You probably have a receipt somewhere that will tell you what you purchased. Take that receipt and put it into a file where you can find it when it comes time to order the mulch. If you can’t remember or if you can’t find the receipt now would be a good time to measure the length and width of the areas that need to be mulched. You will need to know how many feet wide and how many feet long each area is that need the mulch. You will also need to know how much depth of mulch you will need. You want to have 3 inches of mulch covering each area. The combination of these measurements will allow you to purchase the correct amount of mulch you will need in the spring.
Do you know how big your lawn is? You need to know the square footage of lawn if you are going to purchase the right amount of lime and fertilizer to cover your lawn. Since we have no snow on the lawn, it will be easy to measure the lawn now. The length of the lawn times the width of the lawn, in feet, will give you the right square footage of lawn. If you know this measurement, you won’t be buying too much or too little fertilizer or lime come the spring.
Preparation for spring is half the battle in getting started on gardening in the spring. With our winter having so little snow so far, you can do some clean up and pruning outside now.
You probably will need to replace the soil in the window boxes. Dump out that old soil and clean up those window boxes now.
As you can see, there are a lot of things you can do now to get ready for spring. Take advantage of our snow – free winter to get some of the work done now. It is a lot more fun to start the season planting pansies rather than raking the lawn!
Well, that’s all for this week. I’ll talk to you again next week.