How to Prepare Your Garden for Spring

It’s Spring!  Almost.

The Tropical Grower has been Preparing Our Garden for Spring the last couple of weeks.  Yup, it’s that time Tropical Growers, you should have already been in the yard.  While most of the rest of the country was still wrapped up tight and holding off their indoor seed sowing, we had a 100 degree difference in temperature from the northern regions.  I’m not kidding, we were in the 90s.  It was hot and dry.

I always call February Tropical Spring.  It’s absolutely not the rain, we are in drought season.  There’s been no rain in about two weeks.  It’s the flowers and spring planting.  Root vegetables, corn, cold weather plants like broccoli and cabbage need to be in the ground by the end of Feb, or it’s a high risk plant.  My first round of veggie succession plantings also start the middle of Feb about the time the early spring flowers start to bloom.   

When the Yellow Flag Lilies Start to Bloom

When the Yellow Flag Lilies and White African Irises start to bloom, it’s time to prep Our Garden for Spring.  That’s February for those of you who don’t have them in your Tropical Gardens. Really, we are just waiting for the final cold snap here in our tropical growing zone. It’s a free-for-all after that.

Things have been funky this year with Hurricane Ian’s super hard cut across the entire garden. So many things have bloomed out-of-season.  I’m not complaining, we like flowers, but they aren’t blooming in their season. 

Our trees shed all their damaged, and not damaged, leaves after the storm, and now, when I’m usually frantically collecting leaves from the giant South American tree for composting, there are none.  Also not complaining, except it does not do my compost pile good. The natural composting is great, a little chunky with all the branches. The dead leaves dropped and were collected on all the piled up green stuff from the storm or sent to compost, except in the areas it all floated away or layered mulch. Our dog actually woke up to look at me laughing. Hurricane clean-up is getting me giddy at this point. There is still so much left to do. Anyway . . . Spring.

Spring Cleaning Check List

In my crazy grower mind, the Lilies are like Tulips and Daffodils up north.  When I see them, I get the green bug.  It’s time to start prepping for Spring: 

Spring Cleaning Check List
It starts with an overall Spring Clean.
Planting beds, pots, and berms need to be weeded and turned, dead stuff worked in or removed, and all the borders checked and replaced as needed.
Compost and fertilizer needs to be added across Our Garden.
Any veggies that require 3 ½ to 4 months to produce, need to go in the ground.
And mulch, everything needs to be covered to keep the topsoil from baking. The walking paths and mulched areas also need a fresh layer of chip.

Now, these things happen all the time throughout the year.  But pre-spring, they all happen together.  Call it my inability to let go of the traditional seasons, longing for our drought garden to be big and lush and green, or it could be a direct result of me normally trying to clean leaves off everything.  Who knows?  We clean and make healthy for green as Spring settles in.

Spring Cleaning

Our Garden starts Tropical Spring with an overall cleaning.  All the leaves and algae come out of the fountain.  The Bulb Garden, Entry, and beds get weeded and cleaned, not that we ever stop weeding.  The bricks and tile get pressure washed, rock walkways repositioned and bleached.  Yeah, random algae is a real thing.  Irrigation gets checked and cleaned. Objects laying about get put away, recycled into Our Garden, or thrown out along with any damaged or severely dying pots, posts, wood, whatever. You get the idea, we clean. It’s always surprising how many objects I look at everyday and don’t see to put away.

After the basic clean, we move on to basic garden maintenance. Soft border logs get chopped and worked into beds or moved to compost and replaced with fresh ones, the ones sprouting will eventually get planted.  Inorganic borders get repositioned. The mulched areas get a fresh layer.  And yes, I do pull out my little chipper for our natural areas. We have so many dead branches. Dead Cannas are removed and seeds contained.  Red Lobster Claw Heliconia dying stalks are removed.  Bromeliad beds get some love. Basic trimming of dead stuff and some reshaping of shrubs and ornamental trees.  This year we are reshaping severely cut trees as well.  You get the idea. And, that is all before doing the actual spring prep of all the pots and beds.         

Pots

New Plants

Pots, even in the garden, need the most attention.  They are a complete nutritional growing environment, contained.  The first growing season you add new soil and plant the pot, the happy plants pull all the nutrients from the soil into the plants to grow.  Then, the plant dies or moves into the next growing season.  Whatever nutrients are left in the pot is all the next plant, or the same plant, has for the next growing season if you don’t add more.

Weeds and Debris

The first thing you always do whether you are prepping pots or beds is remove all the weeds.  Get those things outta there by the roots.  We just pull them out by hand.  While you can treat them with a herbicide either made or bought, we do not treat our pots or beds unless there is some type of problem. It’s a personal preference. I also tend to leave clover and the natural moss we have growing around the garden, but everything else goes, and there’s tons of it.

Then, you pull back or remove the mulch, dead leaves, sticks, and other debris.  Depending on what state those are in, new or breaking down, I either take them to compost or work them into the soil.  The mulch, I’ll either reuse as mulch or take to compost.    

Soil Settling or Dirt Compaction

Soil compacts naturally.  If you put dirt somewhere, gravity will do its work.  Pots that have 2 inches of rim at planting, have 5 inches of rim after the growing season.  While some dirt escapes either out the top or carried with water through the drainage holes, mostly, it’s the dirt compacting or pressing together.  It gets difficult to push a shovel or fork into it.  Since roots have a hard time breaking up compacted soil to grow through, you want to turn the dirt.  Get it loose and moving.

The Fork

The Fork or Pitch Fork is the correct tool for breaking up dirt.  Martha Stewart said so, memories subject to change, but I can still picture the diagram.  A Fork’s prongs come straight out from the handle, and it looks exactly like a very large fork.  It shouldn’t be confused with the Rake and its curved prongs. While the Rake is great for pulling off top vegetation and moving dirt, its prongs are difficult to work deep into the dirt for an easy turn.

Now, as an experienced grower, I will tell you, the tool I generally use in any given situation is the one in or nearest my hand. My point is you don’t need a bunch of fancy tools. Using the proper tool does tend to make a job easier, but it isn’t essential.

I use a shovel, both hand and full size, for most garden jobs because it’s what’s in my hand when I notice something needs to be done. Although lately, I have been carrying around the giant dull knife looking thing My Son and Hannah bought me for Christmas. It pulls whole plants with roots, minus the dirt, out of the ground easily, separates the insides of pots from their dirt better than a shovel, measures, and you can stab it deep into a planting hole to turn the dirt deep inside. It may be my new hand shovel replacement.

Turning Your Dirt

It’s super simple to turn your dirt.  For any empty pot, stick your fork straight into the pot and turn while pulling the tool out of the pot.  If you angle it a little while it is coming out of the pot, it turns even more dirt.  I do this a couple of times throughout the pot being careful not to disturb any rocks I’ve previously added to the bottom of the pot, under the soil, to help with drainage.  The goal is to have a loose easy to mix soil instead of hard clumpy lumps or a solid brick mass in the pot. And in Tropical Gardens, sand compacts good and hard.

Add Nutrients to Your Soil

Fertilizers are a personal preference.  Whether you like to use a homemade Comfrey tea, commercial fertilizer, or you’re a die hard compost only fan, you need to add nutrients back to the dirt, the compost will come later.  

We use a neutral (all the nutrient %s are close to the same) granular fertilizer specially formulated not to burn.  I rarely use the recommended amount on anything but veggies and fruits, adding a little overall sprinkle to most pots or plants.  I’m not really worried about overfertilizing the plant, even though I’ll also be adding compost later.  My concern is more with wash-out, as in fertilizer washing out of the pots.  First, what a waste.  Who wants to overpay to fertilize weeds around the pot.  If you’re not concerned with algae blooms from fertilizer run-off, you should be concerned with feeding weeds around the pot you will just have to pull or treat later.  Pay more and do more work, how delightful. My advice is to practice restraint, and add more later if the plant needs it.

Water Storage Crystals 

We also add Water Storage Crystals to water hungry plants, not to ones who prefer dry roots like lavender.  My Mom started using these a number of years ago.  She found a package in check-out at Home Depot.  The bag comes filled with white granules about the size of sand.  Don’t get ‘em wet.  They literally fill with water to the size of large pumpkin seeds, only in chunks.  This is the same gel stuff people use in hydroponics instead of dirt.  We just throw a pinch in the pot before mixing to help keep the soil moist, time-released style.  It’s just a preference.

And Now the Compost

We tend to be generous with the compost because I make it.  You can use any new rich soil, My Son and Hannah got theirs from the County pile.  There are numerous commercial ones.  If I’m buying a commercial one, I’ve been using Miracle Grow Organics for Containers.  I chose this one because it’s fine peat heavy and mixes beautifully with our natural sandy soil. 

Sand, needed for proper drainage here and the preferred soil type for most tropicals, is considered inorganic.  So Tropical Growers, if you are strict about only buying an Organic soil, you are going to have to add inorganics like sand to your pot in order for it to drain properly.  Personally, I am more interested in the dirt mix than the labels. At best, I find the certified organic requirements confusing, and at worst, counter to my knowledge as a grower, like with sand.

Mix Well as the Pot is Filled

Add a small scoop of fresh compost or soil and mix up what you already have in the pot, again be careful not to disturb any rocks at the bottom of the pot.  The mix should move around easily. If it’s hard or difficult to move around, turn it again. How much compost or soil you add from here depends on what you are doing.  Regardless, mix after each scoop or two.  

If you’re planting seeds, you should fill the pot to about 2 inches from the top of the pot, patting the dirt down gently.  Really loose soil needs a little more, try 1 1/2 inches from the top.  If you are adding a starter plant with a pot full of dirt, leave a hole in the middle or about 2 ½ inches from the top.  I prefer the hole.  Same with a bulb.  It just saves time as I would have to put one there anyway. If my starter plant is close to the same size as my pot, I’ll wait and prep the pot when I plant it.

Tip – Replacing the Soil

Replace the soil when it looks dry and dead in the pot after watering. Depending on how much use the pot gets, if any natural composting is going on in the pot, the amount of compost added each season, blah, blah, blah, eventually, you will need to replace the soil.

Unless there is a fungus or bugs that killed the last plant, we like to reuse our old soil. Sometimes, we dump the pot into a large fresh batch of dirt we are mixing in the cart. We’re talking gallons of soil. We did this when we repotted the Amaryllis bulbs. Mostly, what’s left in the pot is inorganics. Our Garden needs those in the pots. We also empty pots into compost and dump them in the yard. It all depends on what is in them and our needs at that moment.

Pots Prepped and ready for plants.

Pots with Existing Plants

We approach these a little differently.  The weeding is the same, but the moss or mulch on top usually gets lifted while I mess with the dirt.  For a pot with a plant, you can either skip the turning or carefully turn the outer edges.  If you carefully work the fork around the outside of the pot edges, it will break-up the dirt.  You just have to be easy when inserting the fork and barely turn to keep from damaging roots.  I only do this if the soil in the pot is super hard.

The Claw

Now, it’s The Claw!  Using my fingers shaped like a claw in a circular motion, I gently break-up the top few inches of soil being careful not to mangle roots.  You can use gloves or a rake, but I prefer to feel if I’m mussing up any roots, and I’m not worried about my manicure.  You shouldn’t do this with bare fingers if you are as it can chip them. I add the fertilizer here, lightly sprinkling the top of the pot, repeating the claw circles to work the fertilizer into the soil.  

Then, I add a compost topper, claw circles again to work everything together.  Pat down the soil making everything even, or use the hose to wash the dirt into place. I try to leave a trough around the outside with the plant(s) on a little mound in the center.  Mulch or replace the moss, watering well.  I like growing moss in the pots.  It keeps everything moist and helps with weed control.  There is also the pretty green color.

For Repotting tips, check out How to Repot Amaryllis Bulbs

Planting Beds

Natural Composting

When people say they compost in place, they mean they layer their compost in an unused bed to sit until it is soil, usually over winter.  I did this with all the Hurricane Ian debris in the extended portion of the Traditional Vegetable & Herb garden.  It had heavy big trees and branches blanketing it damage.  Oh, and flooding.  The piles are still there waiting for me to have some extra time to finish building the new raised beds I have planned for this area.  The project was Hurricane delayed.  Laughing here.  

Natural Florida

Most tropical plants compost in place naturally, all year.  If you’ve ever walked, or rode, the Florida wilds (and you absolutely should), you literally see it everywhere.  Palms in particular drop bottom dead leaves in layers that cover and kill weeds which rot between the layers.  Storms and frosts also drop green which gets trapped between the layers.  Nature’s composting at its finest. It can also be super slimy if you try to remove it.

We like to foster what plants like, and natural composting takes them from growing in sand to thriving in Black Sand.  And that, Growers and Lovers of Green Things, is natural Florida.  Most Florida landscaping removes all the natural stuff and replaces it with supplements to give beds a cleaner look.  I get it.  We use both here.

Tree Beds

All of the trees either have beds or are part of a berm system interconnecting the trees and plants.  The tree beds cover anywhere from 2 feet to 4 feet around the bottom of the tree and are bordered by cut logs, deadfall from storms or trimmings.  Almost everything that falls from the tree either lands here or gets raked towards the trunk.  It happens throughout the year.  The boarders give a clean natural look, the natural composting gives it a healthy boost.

Once a year at spring prep, I take a shovel and break-up dead vegetation.  It’s been much more difficult since we started throwing wildflower seeds in there, but I do my best not to stab the companion plants.  Once broken up a little, I toss a couple of handfuls of the neutral granular fertilizer in a wide sprinkle over the bed areas if they are not fruit trees.  Fruit trees are fertilized in Nov-Dec. separately.

Fertilizer Dose

When I say I throw a couple of handfuls of fertilizer into the tree bed, there is an actual dosage there, and it isn’t just less than recommended.  I have tiny little girl hands.  It was just the way I was made.  Almost consistently, a handful for me is ⅛ of a cup or 2 tablespoons.  You learn these things about yourself when you do big areas for a while. Okay, maybe I’m just lazy with the scoop, but not irresponsible. The recommended dose is 3 tablespoons for a 2 gallon pot or 4 square feet.  Since I’m sprinkling about 8 square feet both in and around the tree beds, it’s about 2 tablespoons less than recommended.  Don’t forget, I’m also adding compost.

Compost

Whether I add Yard Compost or Garden Compost to the tree beds depends on which I have the most of at the time.  Our Garden Compost tends to be a bit richer and less chunky, and I save it for the more intense plants like the fruits and veggies.  However, I added it to all Our Garden after Hurricane Ian.  There was flooding and erosion and lots of chunky stuff.  It needed the extra nutrients.  I’ve been adding small amounts of the Yard Compost, pre-spring, even though I just added it a couple of months ago.  Everything was pretty stressed.

Adding some loose scoops of compost to the tree and plant beds isn’t like most plantings, packing isn’t really necessary.  Unless your roots are floating on the topsoil, you don’t really have to worry about air pockets around the roots.  I just sprinkle some scoops in there loosely and let the sprinklers settle it into place.  I use this same method when adding compost to most plants and trees around the garden.  Ask yourself, am I worried about air pockets?  Did I pile instead of sprinkle?  If yes, pack it good.

Berms

We have numerous berms around the garden. These are simply areas of raised soil usually with borders. They give Our Garden levels and interesting places to plant. They function like raised beds.

Some of our berms are Yard Compost piles that are never moved.  They were turned and shaped until they stood a couple of feet above the surrounding ground as nutrient rich berms. We just added boarders like rocks and logs.  There is nothing more natural if you’re willing to stare at the debris piles for a number of years.

We also have drainage berms on both sides of the drainage ditch.  These are constantly being supplied with leaves, branches, and dead weeds and plants.  Using borders, we trap the never ending supply raking and moving everything inside.  Yup, natural composting.

Fertilizers and Stormwater

Once a year, I walk the berms, breaking up the vegetation with a shovel, and sprinkle with fertilizer.  I use the hand toss method here as well.  If we didn’t have a completely closed drainage system, I might rethink my method and spend more time burying it, but we have all dry detention with no outfall.  That means, when it rains, my stormwater doesn’t go anywhere.  I trap everything onsite including all fertilizer to be absorbed into the ground.  It literally can’t go anywhere but Our Garden.  This is the exact opposite of almost ALL Florida properties.  Fertilizer runoff is a contributor to algae blooms and none of us want to look at dead fish when we go to the beach.  Just saying. Don’t be heavy-handed as a grower. More fertilizer does not equal healthier plants, and it can hurt them. There’s always a balance.

Raised and Ground Planted Vegetable, Fruit, and Herb Beds

Our Raised and Ground Beds are constantly being turned with new plantings.  They come in 2 varieties, weed mat covered or not.  We love weed mats.  There is nothing I do more than pull weeds.  Anything that cuts down on that is a winner in Our Garden.  However, certain plants just do better in open beds, especially if you’re doing multiple crop plantings.  Our corn mounts tend to dissolve less or the roots come out less without the mat, not sure why.  Lettuce row crops, small radishes, celery have all done better without the mats.

Why this makes a difference at all is how you prep the bed.  Weed mats have holes cut in them where the plants grow.  Unless you’re cutting new holes or changing the mat, you’re growing in the same ones.  I prep these just like I do a pot.  The only exception is, if there are many small holes in the mat, like for carrots or beans, I lift up the whole mat and prep like an open bed.

Open Beds and Open Ground

Whether you have a whole area of raised bed or an area of open ground, you prep it the same.  Weed and remove the mulch and debris, turn (use an actual pitch fork for large areas), add supplements, fill with compost, mix well, and shape into rows or mounds.  It’s also basically the same as a pot.  Growing is funny that way.

Go Get Ready for Some Green!

Now, get out there and sweat in your garden Tropical Growers.  Be thankful you are living in green.  You can envy the northern grower crops when the rains start.

Spring Planting Update

Getting plants in the ground is a priority come Feb, but the corn was planted in Jan. to give it some extra cook time.  Feb my first and second succession plantings of Cucumber were direct sowed (seeds planted in the ground) along with Okra, Spaghetti Squash, Pole Beans, White Radish, Turnips, and Carrots.  I also planted the first set of lettuces.  There are starter plants in the nursery including Cabbage, Bok Choy, Sage, Celery and Swiss Chard.  But the real stars at the moment are the plants still going strong from the fall plantings.  

Existing Plants

8 of the 9 Broccoli plants are still producing strong, and I’m still making to-go bags for family.  I harvested all the cabbage plants, and they all look like they are growing more heads.  The Roma, Beefsteaks, Yellow Pear, and Flame Tomatoes are all still producing strong.  I took cuttings from all the tomato plants, and I have starter tomato plants ready to go in the ground.  The Rio Grande Verde Tomatillos and Banana Pepper are all still producing.  

The White Onions, Eggplants, and Cape Gooseberry Tomatillos all planted late are finally getting ready to produce.  I dropped more White Onions and all the rest of the Red Onion sets.  The white ones have green sprouts, not so much the crappy red ones, none of the sets sprouted, again. It’s okay, I figured I made a bad buy. Everything else looks great.

We’re feeling good about the Spring crop. It was a long fall and winter with high-risk plants, but we did okay. Tired, worn, and exhausted, but Our Garden is looking good. I even called it hot stuff the other morning. Spring is looking hopeful.