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How to Prepare your Vegetable Garden for Spring

Fresh vegetables are not only tasty to consume, but they are also high in important vitamins. By growing your own in your own vegetable garden, you can not only be safe in the knowledge that you know what’s in your food, but it’s also a satisfying way of keeping a balanced and nutritional diet.

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Preparing your Vegetable Garden for Spring

If you are just starting out or a seasonal grower of your own produce, the first step is to prepare your vegetable garden. By preparing your vegetable garden, you are giving yourself the greatest chance of producing a vast amount of tasty food. Follow these steps from Hillier as to how you can prepare your vegetable garden:

Find the ideal position for your vegetable garden. While some vegetables won’t mind growing in partial shade, you will notice that a lot will thrive in the sun. By selecting a location in your garden where the sun shines but your vegetable garden is sheltered, you are doing something extremely important.
Plan out how you want your vegetable garden to look. Consider the vegetables that may need support when growing and place them in the most sheltered spots. It may be a good idea to keep the lower-growing vegetables in the front and the taller ones in the back so you can clearly see the entire crop.
Ensure that you have gotten rid of any weeds prior to growing your vegetables. Once you have dug up any weeds, allow your soil to rest for a couple of weeks.
Be certain that your soil is at the most prosperous level for growing vegetables.
If you are just starting out with your own, don’t give yourself too much to do. To begin, keep your vegetable garden small and focus on growing vegetables such as courgettes or radishes.

When should I prepare my vegetable garden?

The advantage of creating your own vegetable garden is that there is so much on offer all through the year. You can grow a wide variety of vegetables starting in January and ending with something completely different at the end of December.

During March and April, it is the prime time to sow your vegetable seeds outside as the soil and weather gradually become warmer. If you aren’t sure whether the temperature is right to sow your seeds, you can always hold off until April arrives to be on the safe side.

Spring is the season for the first of the fresh greens, like pea shoots and spring onions.

Seed varieties to try

When vegetables are scarce, Early Purple Sprouting provides a succession of tender shoots. For a spinach variety that can provide continuous crops through to autumn, try Spinach Apollo. Spring Onion White Lisbon is a popular spring onion variety that matures quickly and has a mild flavour. An easy-to-grow radish variety is Radish Flamboyant 3, which is suitable for both indoor and outdoor growing. Pea Shoot seeds germinate quickly and can be sown indoors at any time of year. Try the highly nutritious Pea Shoots Twinkle.

Sowing & Harvesting Times

How do I prepare my soil for my vegetable garden?

To encourage a healthy harvest, the soil is highly important. Your soil is the main basis for what you are able to produce. Neutral soil is the best type of soil for your crop to grow on. It’s a good idea to test your soil with a pH Soil Test Kit; that way, you can plan which vegetables you can grow and how you can improve your soil. You can also enhance your soil by:

Tidying up rocks and throwing away debris.
Break up the soil structure to provide space for roots to develop.
Add a top layer of an organic substance, such as topsoil or compost, to help add nutrients to your soil.

What does every vegetable gardener need?

Every vegetable gardener needs their own grow your own toolkit to achieve their best possible produce. The right tools will help your journey to tasty and successful vegetables.

Gardening trowel. The trusty trowel is the staple to growing your own vegetables, as it’s ideal for sowing seeds, planting and weeding.
Spade. The ideal tool for digging and preparing your vegetable garden.
Fork. An excellent tool for your soil within your vegetable patch. Assisting in the loosening of large clumps in preparation for your seeds.
Rake. It also assists in the breakdown of soil and firming up any space that you’re preparing for your spring vegetable garden.
Gloves. Essential for getting your hands dirty with your grow your own journey.