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Spring is in the air and it is that time of the year when you take advantage of this rejuvenating season and commence planting your garden. You can enjoy the benefits of the early thaw to create your very own vegetable garden that would be one hundred percent organic and bursting with wholesome goodness. This way, you will be able to enjoy your vitamins fresh from your garden and you will know that they are just simply bursting with wholesome goodness. Let us see how you can go about doing that:
- What and when to plant
There are plenty of edibles that you can plant in spring. Basically, you can divide them into two separate and distinct groups. Here, the first group will include the cole crops. These are vegetables that can be cultivated in the early spring season. You can simply plant them directly in your garden, or even on your kitchen window shelf. This grouping includes collards, peas, radishes, Chinese kale, turnips, onions, lettuce, and spinach. All nice and healthy additions to your dining table. These veggies should be planted in early Feb so that they can take advantage of the cold weather to grow and flourish. The other group includes potatoes, beets, chard, carrots, and parsnips. They should be planted a bit later. Around the middle of March to ensure healthy and rapid growth.
- Get a jumpstart in March with the help of indoor growing tents
Early March is also considered by many, if not most gardeners to be a really great time if you want to start your spring crop indoors. Here, it is very important that you have the right and essential indoor gardening tools for plant growing. You should also consider including a 4×4 indoor grow tent for best results.
Timing is of critical importance here. After all, the goal here is to start a vegetable garden so that you will be able to enjoy healthy young plants. This is only possible if your plants are mature enough to withstand any harsh outdoor conditions. You will have to make sure that your plants don’t remain in their trays for too long. If that happens, they will become nutrient-stressed and also root bound too. In the long run, it will make them much more vulnerable to something known as ‘transplant shock.’ This happens when a plant has been inside a container for too long, and can’t survive the outdoors conditions.
- Mid to late March onwards
Once you are done with your initial round of early and mid-spring sowings, you can commence getting a jump-start on your summer crops by planting them indoors from mid to late March. Tomatoes are an ideal vegetable to be planted in this time frame. Apart from red luscious tomatoes, you can also plant peppers, squash, cucumbers, and zucchini too. All of these grow very quickly and can be planted directly into the garden if there is no threat of a sudden frost that might freeze them.
- Harden off your plants
By this, it is meant that you should take certain steps while the plants are spending their last few weeks in indoor trays. Your indoor environment will more or less have a fairly consistent temperature and your plants won’t be subjected to bitterly cold winds and other harsh outdoor conditions. This is why it is imperative that you acclimatize your vegetables so that they will be able to survive in the more variable outdoors conditions.
The best way to do this is to place them outside in a sunny spot, either on the balcony or on a window shelf. You can start exposing them to external conditions for a few minutes and stretch the time frame to a few hours every day. You should bring them inside if there is a storm warning or even if it’s very cold. Once they are used to the outside conditions, you can safely plant them in your garden. You have to keep them watered until they are all nice and big.
Conclusion
Once your spring plants have been planted outside, all they will need is a bit of regular maintenance. If done right, you can rest assured that you will have plenty of veggies to enjoy from summer onwards.
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