Early Spring: A Homestead To-Do List
This time of year reminds me often of Karel Čapek’s words in his book The Gardener’s Year:
“One day you will open your eyes and the garden will be green, long grass will glisten with dew, and from the tangled tops of the roses swollen and crimson buds will peep forth; and the trees will be old, and their crowns will be dark and heavy and widely spread, with a musty smell in their damp shade. And you will remember no more the slender, naked, brown little garden of those days, the uncertain down of the first grass, the first pinched buds, and all the earthy, poor, and touching beauty of a garden which is being laid out….Very well, but now you must water and weed, and pick the stones out of the soil.”
Pansies and johnny jump-ups are the first bits of color to adorn our gardens in the spring. They are hardy and can withstand the early spring snows.
Radishes are a quick-growing crop, ready to harvest in just 28-30 days. These were last year’s…covered by compost made from our food scraps.
Spring brings plenty to do on the homestead but much of these first few weeks feel like a waiting season. It is a practice of patience for sure, waiting for dry and warm days to be mixed into the forecast. And when they are, it feels like a scramble to get as much done outdoors as possible! It’s hard to imagine the day where the yard will be filled with rich green, lush leaves, and colorful flowers… but it will be here before we know it. Here’s a peak at some of the good work set before us this spring.
Expand the garden & order dirt
This consists of laying cardboard, allowing it to soak in the rain, ordering dirt, moving it to the cardboard layout, forming the beds, laying woodchips for pathways, and finally planting!
Put up new garden fencing
This year we are replacing the plastic deer fencing with cattle panel and expanding it to incorporate the new garden we are laying out. Deer are a huge problem in our area, so fencing is necessary to keep our gardens safe. The black plastic fencing is constantly sagging and the squirrels have chewed one too many holes through, so I think the cattle panel will look much more put together.
Woodchip the garden pathways
Every spring we line the pathways with new woodchips. They decompose throughout the year and a fresh layer is always necessary come spring. We have a local pile that is free as well as lots of woodchips left from the stump grinding of a tree we got cut down.
Stack wood
We recently cut down a tree and requested that they leave us a portion of the wood. We are splitting and stacking it as well as using slices as stepping stones for the garden.
Create a better compost system
Our current system does not yield us the best compost so something we need to tackle is creating a better system and tending to the pile in a disciplined manner instead of just throwing scraps in there and hoping for the best.
Clean and organize potting bench
Somehow this area always becomes a mess over the winter so it’s time to go through and compost any dirt leftover from last year’s potted plants, wash out and stack pots, throw away weather-worn knick-knacks and do just a general organization of all the garden supplies we store there.
Harden off cold frames and remove
The nights are getting to be consistently above 40F so we have removed the cold frames from the greens we overwintered. We will move the frames to a different place in the yard to use them as mini greenhouses for starting more seeds and hardening off the ones we already have growing indoors.
Harden off indoor seedlings
Like I mentioned above, the seeds we are growing indoors will need hardened off before planting outside. This is an important step in gardening that really can’t be rushed (ask me how I know!) The tomatoes and peppers that we have started indoors know nothing but artificial light and indoor air, so if we were to stick them in the ground right away, they would go into shock. The plants need to be slowly introduced to real sunlight and wind in order to be strengthened for life outdoors. We will probably begin this process in mid-April so they are ready for planting in May after the chance of frost has passed.
Direct-sow spring crops
This is something we usually do mid-March. I do have a few seeds in the ground but we are battling squirrels as usual and I unfortunately need to do a lot of replanting thanks to their aggressive digging. My brassicas also did terribly indoors so I am now direct-sowing those and will most likely purchase starts from a local nursery as well. The good news is, our tomatoes started from seed are looking way better than last year! You win some, you lose some. Learn more about spring planting in this post.
Johnny-jump ups and pansies from local nursery
Johnny jump ups and pansies are some of the very first flowers of the year. They are incredibly cold tolerant and will survive the last few early spring snow falls and will continue to offer color to our gardens well through summer. Every spring I head to my locally-owned nursery and buy a couple flats to plant in terracotta pots and they really cheer up the space.
Cut down dried flower heads and grasses
We leave our flower heads up all year because the birds enjoy foraging the seeds in the winter. This means in order to plant our beds for a new season, they must first be cleaned up. I enjoy this chore in the spring because it gives me an excuse to get outside and work in the garden.
Harvest violets and dandelions
Violets and dandelions are the first of the wild edibles that appear when our yard comes to life. We use violets in our breast-health salve and dandelions to make soaps and salves as well. These need to be foraged and dried. I suppose it’s time to get the drying racks out already!
“Surely as cometh the Winter, I know
There are Spring violets under the snow.“”
Eagerness rivals my patience this time of year, but the wintry days that linger are a good reminder to “do all things without grumbling or complaining” (Philippians 2:14) even if that means working inside when I want to be in the garden, or enduring another gloomy day when I want to see sun. The Lord is a good teacher and is not in a rush as we are. And so when Spring brings work but lacks the right weather to get it done, let us echo the words of Annie Keary, “…do not rush after the planned work; trust that the time to finish it will be given sometime, and keep a quiet heart about it.”
Be blessed,
Kaetlyn
