Spring Garden Prep – Get Ready to Grow with Help from SPS

The time has arrived to start your spring garden prep as we inch closer to summer. Planning now to prepare your garden, of any size, for the upcoming season helps ease any “growing pains” you may have if this is your first (or 50th) season using your green thumb. Gardening offers so many benefits — from reducing stress to building self-esteem to growing your own food for you and your family. After you’re done spring cleaning, plan to start your spring garden prep with these tips from Security Public Storage.

SPS’s Guide to Spring Garden Prep

If you’re a seasoned gardener, your spring garden prep likely started months ago, as you ordered seeds and drooled over home and garden catalogs. Meanwhile, beginner gardeners are starting to search for blog posts about ‘building raised garden beds’ and ‘what’s the easiest plant to not kill.’ We’re all at different stages, but generally speaking, here’s a great place to start if you’re feeling lost on spring garden prep.

1. Prep Your Gardening Tools — Maybe you have them stored away at your SPS storage unit, but now is the time to retrieve garden tools, lawn mowers, shovels, and other seasonal items you’ll use outdoors this summer. Break off dirt clumps and clean shovels, hoes and rakes. Now would be a good time to sharpen blades on pruners, lawn mower blades, and shovels.
2. Get Garden Ready Before Planting — A couple of weeks before planting your garden, prepare the soil in your garden bed for the upcoming growing season. Add soil nutrients, ensure the soil isn’t compacted, remove stray weeds, till the garden bed and work compost into the soil. This is a great time to check irrigation systems and hoses.
3. Add Soil to Raised Beds — Many people use raised beds for gardening because of their size. If you don’t have a backyard, it’s possible to have a small raised garden bed on your apartment’s patio. If this isn’t your first season gardening, you’ll likely need to add more top soil to the raised bed to prepare it for the growing season.
4. Remove Dead Branches from Trees — Hopefully you have pruned your trees before the leaves started growing out, as the earlier this is done, the easier it is for the tree to form new growth. As other branches develop leaves, you’ll be able to see which branches are dead and can be removed (which helps prevent falling branches in windy conditions).
5. Research Plant Choices — The weather in your region, as well as the size of your garden and your personal preferences, all influence what you can grow in your garden. Master gardeners all over the world have contributed guides to the Internet, making it easier than ever to find specific plants that will grow best in your garden.
6. Start Planting Your Edible Garden — Edible spring garden plants include lettuce, spinach, peas, onions and anything that likes growing in temperatures between 40-70 degrees. Early spring is also when you should plant fruit trees like nectarines, peaches, and plums.
7. Add Color with Springtime Bulbs — Springtime bulbs like day lilies and tulips, as well as early-flowering plants add color and growth to your garden. You may also consider planting crocuses, bleeding hearts and bearded irises.

Enjoy the Fruits of Your Spring Garden Prep

The best part about gardening is seeing the results of your hard work, be it new growth on a houseplant, a bed of lettuce in your garden or the tulips blooming in your front yard. Getting outside and getting your hands dirty in the garden offers many health benefits, both physical and mental. Now is the time to start your spring garden prep, so you’ll be enjoying summer salads straight from your raised beds in a couple of months.

Need to make room at home for your gardening tools and equipment? SPS offers storage units for rent throughout the West Coast and the Washington DC metro area.