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Spring Fever Busters

© Linda Mazar

Spring is in the air even up here in Minnesota, but it is just too wet and cold to start planting those gardens here yet. The kids are antsy, I'm antsy, and that clay we call a yard is soaking wet. Too wet to play, too wet to work the soil, it's just too wet. What can we do to get ready for spring? What can we do to avoid driving each other crazy?

There are things we can do to prepare - some inside and some outside. So let's get ready for spring and break through Spring Fever!

Inside - Make sure you have a plan for your gardens. It doesn't have to be a formal plan all drawn out with color coding, but have an idea of the colors you want, the types of flowers desired and their care requirements (water, light, fertilization needs, etc.), the heights of the various plants, and how you want them to fit together in the beds. For your vegetable garden, you will want to be sure to rotate the placement of your vegetables and make sure everything will get enough sun.

Once you have a plan ready, it's time to get those seeds started for spring. Find out what your last frost date is in your area and then check the back of those seed packets to decide when to start each seed type.

Get some soilless seed-starting medium (it is available at nurseries, hardware stores, and many discount stores that have garden centers). You want to use this to start seeds as regular garden soil is often too heavy and isn't sterile. You don't want weed seeds starting instead of your plant seeds! If you need directions on seed starting, check out these informative sites:

• Greenweb's Grow Almost anything from seed
• Weekend Gardener's Official Seed Starting Page
• My own seed starting basics
• Making a seed starting station

Outside - Now for the outside preparations. As soon as things start to green up is the time to go on a weed search. Pull the dandelions and grass out of the beds (being careful to get the whole root). If you want to add plastic or metal edging, put it in before the bed is planted. Get the deeper ones as roots can travel underground. You may not only be trying to keep the grass out of the bed, but the bedding plants out of the grass, so go for the deeper edging. Once the bed has dried out enough, you can work the soil and dig (or till) in compost or shredded leaves, etc.

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