A couple weeks ago I was gearing up for planting my Spring veggie garden by Spring-ifying (totally a word 😉 ) my planters by my front door. Today, I want to talk a little bit about spring gardening – hopefully it’ll get you all excited to grab your kids and go get started on your garden.
The first thing to do is to find your county extension office online. Every county has one. Your extension office will almost assuredly have a planting calendar of some kind, plus a bunch more information.
Around here (Maricopa County, Arizona) we can grow vegetable gardens all year long, but prime Spring garden planting time is right around Valentine’s Day.
I, personally, don’t plant everything all at once, for many reasons. One being that I want things to be ready in waves. I don’t want all my strawberries, green onions, watermelon, etc. all ready to be harvested at the same time. So I refer to my planting calendar (found here), and spread my planting out to every 2 weeks for the same crop, during planting season. For example, according to my planting calendar, I can plant watermelon anywhere from Feb 15th – March 15th. So, I plant some right around February 15th and then another bunch right around the first of March, and then again mid-March.
Another reason I don’t plant all my stuff at once is that I don’t like to pull my winter garden out until it’s really ready to come out – when it’s pretty much done producing anything. It’s almost too hot for my sugar snap peas, lettuce, and broccoli now, but since they’re still producing, I want to give them a couple more weeks:
And also because when my cilantro, from my winter garden, goes to seed, the ladybugs LOVE it! We get to see them in all their different stages of development (it’s a great science lesson).
Another bonus (for me) for staggering planting times is that I can plant with one or 2 kids at a time and promise the others that they get to do the next round of planting with me. They’re happy to plant and they get to do a little more since there are just one or two of them. On top of that, I enjoy it more because I don’t have all of them asking, “When is it my turn?…” every few minutes.
So, if you haven’t planted – get to it! If it’s not time for you to plant quite yet, gather your stuff and plan your garden, so when it’s time, you’ll be ready. And, while we all wait for things to start growing, here are some pictures (from some of my gardens from years past) to get us going. (I may need to bring them back up in June and July when our 100°F + weather hits)
Flowers and strawberries:
A new bell pepper and a zucchini:
Tomatoes ripening and a delicious watermelon:
Green onions and tomato harvesting:
Even the littlest ones like to dig in the garden:
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Garden blossoms for a cute, little centerpiece and the trees are blooming (yes, it’s not technically a “garden” blossom, but I love it when the fruit trees start blooming):
Garden blossoms for a cute, little centerpiece and the trees are blooming (yes, it’s not technically a “garden” blossom, but I love it when the fruit trees start blooming):
Garden blossoms for a cute, little centerpiece and the trees are blooming (yes, it’s not technically a “garden” blossom, but I love it when the fruit trees start blooming):
One of my favorite garden helpers!!
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