7 Spring Garden Tasks You Can't Afford to Forget...)

What's going on growers? It's James Frisione coming to you live from Jersey. Spring is here, the birds are chirping, the weather is heating up, and it's the perfect time to set yourself up for a productive year. Today I'm going to share with you seven garden tasks you can't afford to forget this spring. Let's go. Let's jump right into it with our first task of getting our garden beds prepped. This way they're ready for us to either direct sow or transplant right into. For my beds in winter I cover them with a thick layer of leaves. This helps insulate the soil and allows the microbiological life to stay active longer. I prefer to use leaves to cover my beds over the winter for a few reasons. First of all when I remove these recycled leaves I store them in a Then I use a lawnmower and dice up the leaves to then use as a form of mulch around my plants. Also if I don't get all the leaves that's okay I can just mix them into the soil and the worms will eat them as opposed to using something like wood chips as a mulch in my beds. If I mix these into the soil then these could rob the soil of nitrogen. After removing the leaves I'd go by and mix my soil with my hands. This helps to lighten the soil and provide some aeration. It also allows me to remove any large stems and roots that I left over the winter. I leave the roots of some of my annuals over the winter because they provide food for worms. When prepping your bed I suggest removing large roots and stems because these can obstruct the growth of some of our plants like carrots. When I am done mixing the soil I like to level it all out with my hands to give me an idea of how much soil I may need to top off my bed. Then I grab some of my homemade soil and add a few buckets to the bed. This will help add some organic matter and improve my soil structure while also giving my plants roots more room to grow. Next I mix the added soil into the bed just like this and I level the soil out again to create an ideal planting environment. After that I grab some of my JP secret stuff all-purpose organic fertilizer, any all-purpose organic fertilizer will do, and I sprinkle it over the top of my soil. Ideally you want to do this on a day that isn't so windy but we do what we have to. Then I mix the fertilizer into the top few inches of the soil and level it out one final time. The last step to prepping our bed for planting is to get it ready for square foot gardening. If you're growing in a wooden bed or in ground you could use strings to form the squares for your square feet or if you're growing in a metal bed like me you could do something a little different. I'll show you the technique I use to prep my bed for square foot planting. At this point the bed is perfectly set up for direct sowing, transplanting, or anything else. Now that all of our beds are prepped we can move to the second garden task of direct sowing our cold season crops. Even though it's April it's still the perfect time for me to get some of my cold hardy veggies going like spinach which prefers to be direct sowed. For my metal beds when planting in the square foot method I use this board that I made for planting carrots. It's exactly one square foot so this is like a template that I use when planting in my metal beds. I grab the board and lay it down on my soil then I use my finger to make an outline in the soil to form my square foot. I am planting spinach here and spinach we eat just for the greens so adding some bonus nitrogen will greatly help with growth. I take some blood meal and I add that to my one square foot and mix it into the top few inches of the soil. Next I make four holes with my finger because in square foot gardening we plant four spinach per square foot. I grab my seeds and drop a few seeds in each hole like this. Then I'll cover up the holes with about half of an inch of soil and water the whole section in. In a few days our spinach will sprout and in no time we'll be eating fresh greens. I do the same thing when direct sowing all my crops and I do the same thing when planting onion sets as well. When you prep your bed the right way it makes all planting and transplanting quick and simple and if you want to add some additional amendments for some plants that need specific additives like we did the blood meal for the spinach then you can just do that. The next garden task isn't a fun one but it's a super necessary one and it will allow you to enjoy your garden more during the growing season and the task is to mulch your garden to prevent any weeds from sprouting and growing. My favorite way to mulch a garden is to grab some contractor's paper roll it out in a section then cover it with about four to six inches of wood chips preferably arborist wood chips that still have the needles and the leaves in them. Right now is the ideal time to get your garden mulched even if you're not planting into the ground mulching around your beds will still be worth it. I am planting all different kinds of perennials in my garden like blueberries, grapes along the fence line, and fruit trees mixed throughout. By putting this thick layer of wood chips down not only am I keeping the weeds down I'm also building better soil. The worms will come in to eat the needles and the leaves and the fungi will come in to break down the wood chips and convert them into humus. So we're building better soil structure and fertility while also keeping the weeds down. Trust me it's always better to spend some time working to prevent the weeds rather than having to get out there during the growing season and pull them by hand. The next spring task is one that cannot be overlooked. It's not exciting but without it your garden will be eaten. I'm talking about creating a proactive protection plan. Seeing different forms of life in the garden is refreshing but having those pests both animal and insect pests erase your hard work can definitely be upsetting. That is why I always suggest before you plant anything in the ground that you at least get a fence up. Once your garden gets growing and you've got those delicious fresh veggies I promise you the bunnies the groundhogs everything else will show up. I use a simple welded wire fence then at the bottom I add some chicken wire and make sure that I bury that at least two feet deep. This helps keep the bunnies out and the groundhogs out. Your situation will be different though. If you have to deal with something like deer you're going to need a fence that's at least eight feet high and you may even need a double fence. If you have something like voles digging up under your beds you can add some hardware cloth at the base of it when putting it in. This way they can't dig up under it. When it comes to insect pests you know they're coming also. Now is the time to think about them. This way you can prevent them from coming rather than just having to like deal with or manage them after they're already here. There are some great simple options for keeping the pests out. One of them that I love is this veggo cover. You can put it right over top of your beds. I will also just use a simple insect netting. It just keeps the bugs from being able to get in so it's like you don't have to deal with them or think about them if they can't get to your plants. Just make sure if you're growing some plants like squash or cucumbers that when they flower you remove that insect netting so bees can come in and pollinate your plants. You're thinking what's the point of the insect netting if you have to take it off once the squash and stuff flower? Well squash plants and cucumbers and all plants in general are most susceptible when they're young. So if you can allow them to grow healthy when they're young then when they start to fruit and when they start to flower you take that insect netting off it will still give them a nice jump start to a healthy life. There are also some great organic sprays that I use like Surround Kale and Clay. This is a protectant. I spray it on my cucumbers to keep the cucumber beetles off. I also use this on my fruit trees to keep off the plum curculio. Safer soap is probably my favorite option for soft-bodied insects like aphids. And Bt is my go-to spray for worms and caterpillars especially the cabbage worms. Another spring garden task to get working on is to finish pruning our perennials and also to get them prepped for the growing season. For trees like apple you want to prune these when they are dormant. That is what will encourage the most growth in the spring and I suggest using thinning cuts. That will allow the most light to penetrate the tree and it will also just thin the tree out. We also want to make sure we're removing any diseased or dead branches like you see right here. This pear tree I allowed too much fruit to grow on the tree and then it snapped the branch so we need to go by and remove this. For perennials like asparagus in the winter after they're finished growing I'll go by and chop and drop them to lay a mulch down over top to protect them through the winter. Then in the spring I will start to pull the mulch back as the weather heats up and we're past the danger of frost so the ground can heat up and the asparagus can start to press up through. A very important task is to remove any fruit that might still be on your perennials. This is important because when the weather heats up they can easily spread disease issues throughout the rest of your plants. After you remove them make sure to take them and throw them in the trash. Right now if you're like me in zone 7a you still have time to get some seeds planted inside. I still even have time to get some tomatoes planted. So around here I transplant my tomatoes into the garden in the second week of May say the 10th to like the 14th. Right now we're super early in April that gives me about six weeks until my tomatoes need to be put in the ground and transplanted. That's plenty of time for me to get some more tomatoes started inside. I still have plenty of time to start things like cucumbers and squash as well. A lot of the summer veggies we can still get growing indoors. Check out my 17 video course that I just released this year for step by details how to successfully start seeds indoors. Check it out at teamgrow.us. A task that will allow you to get more out of your garden and will be super valuable especially if you're limited on space is planning to grow vertically. Right now is a good time to put together some of your vertical supports. This way when your plants get growing they have the support they need. You can use a like this or a welded wire fence like I do for my grapes or even grow your tomatoes up strings. The idea is that you get your supports in before your plants need them. It's like when you're growing tomatoes or peppers up stakes. You want to make sure you get those stakes in before you're planting or right when you're planting. This way when the plants actually need those stakes later in the season you don't have to press the stake in through the soil and potentially damage the roots. Early spring is the right time not just to plan for this year but also to plan for years down the road and invest in your own future wellness. To do this I suggest you get some perennials planted. Strawberries are an awesome perennial to plant right now. Get them in the ground this spring and you'll be eating fresh strawberries in the fall or next spring. Asparagus is another fantastic perennial to plant. Grab some roots get them planted and you'll be eating fresh asparagus every spring in the future. It's a good time to get your fruit trees planted too. Bare root ones tend to be my favorite. One more task that I cannot let you forget is to make sure you harden off your plants before actually transplant them into the garden. This is often overlooked and can be detrimental for new gardeners. Hardening off is essentially just getting your plants acclimated to those outdoor conditions before you actually transplant them in the garden. I want to show you something cool. This is a little box I built and it's perfect for hardening your plants off because if you look in here I've got all my young seedlings in here and bunnies could come in and go after this stuff or even birds can come at it but what I do is I built this simple box with just some two by sixes and some hardwood cloth. Now nothing can get to my plants when I'm hardening them off and I built the dimensions perfect so I can fit about two four trays in here and I don't have to worry about something something coming after my plants when I'm sleeping. I'm not like waking up in the middle of the night being like there's something going after my plants. That's today's video growers. Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. I hope you feel encouraged to get out there and get some of these garden tasks done. To me they're fun and super enjoyable. I just came out here the other day you saw it in the video and took all that mulch off got my hands in the soil started mixing it. It just it feels good to get out here on a nice day to get the warming feel from the sun but to get your hands dirty to get active and just to be a part of the garden again. I hate the winter but part of me actually enjoys the winter because it allows me to come back to the garden to have that contrast and to just get that exciting feeling about getting back out there getting growing and all the good things that come from that. So we encourage you to get out there and just get your hands dirty. I want to send a thank you to one of our new channel members Scarlett Davis. Thanks for being a part of Team Grow. Thanks for having your hand in everything we're doing out here. We also want to mention that you've got to check out the website over at Team Grow. It is packed with the greatest garden gear you could think of. Also on there we have that seed starting course which is super high value and will simplify the process of starting seeds and allow you to have healthy plants that are prepped and ready to be transplanted into the garden. As we know healthy seedlings is the foundation of healthy plants which then lead to big harvests. So starting off right with the right foundation makes a massive difference. Check that out over at teamgrow.us. Overall there's nothing like the weather heating up. The buds are swelling on the trees. The spinach and stuff are starting to pop up so it's truly a magical time in the garden. Make sure you're out there soaking up the sun. We'll be back to you again real soon. We out!