Now is the time to plant your garden

T

his long May weekend is traditionally known as the planting weekend. Many gardeners will be putting in vegetable and flower gardens, planting containers and cleaning up lawns. With the recent warm temperatures this weekend will be a good weekend to plant. The soil is warm enough to plant all your seeds as well as bedding plants. Trees, shrubs and perennials do not require warm soil temperatures and can be planted earlier in the season.

When you are putting in a garden you want to do it right. Prepare the soil first by removing any existing weeds and debris, then sprinkle any amendments such as fertilizer, manure, compost etc., on the soil before tilling it in. After the soil has been tilled, get out the garden rake, and level the soil. If you haven’t already done so, make a garden plan, deciding what to plant where, keeping in mind where things were planted last season. Ideally you don’t want to plant the same vegetable in the same place, two years in a row. Crop rotation is a good way to help keep down pests, and diseases, as well as prevent depleting the soil of certain nutrients, because different vegetables use up different nutrients. When you’ve made up your plan, get out your garden hoe, and get ready to sow and plant.

Some gardeners like to plant everything in single rows, while others like to plant in bands. In our home garden we tend to do both. Salad crops are planted in bands, and as we thin out the lettuce we eat the young plants, leaving room for the remaining plants to reach full size. At home we like to plant all our cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, and brussels sprouts in one area of the garden, as this makes it easier to cover them with a crop cover, which prevents mag- gots. We also plant the carrots, onions and leeks in one area and cover them with a crop cover for the same reason.

A crop cover is lightweight enough to allow plants to grow without being impeded, it allows light and moisture through it, but creates a barrier between the plant and the pest, preventing it from laying its eggs on the soils surface, which in turn will hatch into the maggots that ruin crops. The trick is to make sure that the crop cover is tacked down to the soil surface. In our home garden, we place two-by-fours along the edges of the crop cover to keep it secured to the ground. We only remove it to weed, and then it is placed on again, until mid-July when it is taken off for the season because there is no longer a problem. If cared for properly, crop covers can be used for several years, making it a good investment for the garden. Another product that is handy, especially in our northern climate, is Reemay which is a frost protection blanket, that is placed over frost-tender crops to protect them from freezing temperatures. It is similar to the crop cover, except slightly heavier.

As you plant the garden, mark all your rows and keep notes of vegetables and varieties, so that you will know what works and what didn’t work. This will also make it easier for next year.

Wishing everyone a great May long planting weekend!