Pro Tips From Our Ste. Anne’s Gardeners For Spring

Spring is the perfect time to clean out your garden beds! Over the winter months, debris tends to blow around in the wind and accumulate in your garden.  Early spring is a perfect opportunity to remove any unwanted leaves or dead plant material from your beds before any of your new growth emerges.

Weeding and mulching are easily done during the spring and can help to mitigate the amount of weeding you need to do during the summer.  Just be sure to not mistake any of your early spring perennial growth for weeds.  If you mulch it is best to put a thinner layer of approximately two inches as it makes it easier for your perennials to break through and soak up the sun. Now is also a perfect time to feed your gardens.  They have been hibernating over the winter months and may have awakened hungry.

At Ste. Anne’s we like to nourish our gardens with organic amendments (fertilizer) as they help to improve overall soil quality and structure.   Whether you use organic or synthetic the main attributes that you want in your fertilizer are that they are slow releasing and that you cover your N-P-K needs (the three numbers on the package). Typically you should aim for an amendment that covers all three of those numbers somewhat evenly.  An easy thee part amendment for organic gardeners is blood meal (high nitrogen N) bone meal (high phosphorus P) and kelp meal (high potassium K).  Broadcast at the rates indicated on the package.

Hopefully, this was helpful for any of you green thumbs reading this. We look forward to seeing all of you back this summer enjoying the gardens that we are lovingly tending just for you. Until then happy gardening!