7 Tips For Your Spring Garden (PHOTOS)

We here at HuffPost Green love spring, especially the prospects of a new garden! Since we've already given you some ideas for tasty vegetables to start planting, we decided to follow up with 7 tips to help you in growing an awesome organic garden.

Let us know which you like best, and share your own advice in the comments!

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Don’t have a compost pile yet? Well get started, it's easy! Composting is a great way to give fallen leaves, grass clippings, kitchen veggie scraps and garden trimmings a productive use. Compost is excellent when mixed in with soil before planting, and makes great mulch when your garden has already been started. Make sure your compost gets to at least 160° F, essential for destroying weed seeds, which is important when using the compost as mulch.

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Don’t have a compost pile yet? Well get started, it's easy! Composting is a great way to give fallen leaves, grass clippings, kitchen veggie scraps and garden trimmings a productive use. Compost is excellent when mixed in with soil before planting, and makes great mulch when your garden has already been started. Make sure your compost gets to at least 160° F, essential for destroying weed seeds, which is important when using the compost as mulch.

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Comments

[thegardenbuzz]

09:58 AM on 03/22/2010

Plant a variety of berry producing shrubs now for lots of thankful birds in the fall.
http://www.thegardenbuzz.com/2009/11/berry-grateful-birds.html

[paliuli]

12:11 AM on 03/22/2010

What I am excited about planting this spring; Chinese toon, sea kale, sea buckthorn, melaleuca alternifolia, rubine brussell sprouts, and one of two endemic Galapagos Island cherry tomatoes.

[Okieborn]

03:03 PM on 03/21/2010

This spring everyone should try a flower or vegetable garden to spark a new life into our lives,
At least we can bring a little cheer to America !!

[PhilipB]

05:17 PM on 03/21/2010

Yes. Well said.

[ProfessorBrooks]

01:57 PM on 03/21/2010

Be wary of mixing all this advice together--those pretty butterflies you attract will lay eggs and you can come out to find a plague of tiny caterpillars shredding the leaves of your plants. Never thought I would come to hate butterflies--until watching all the leaves on two tomato plants transformed into lacy fibrous skeletons in less than two days.

[Ozark Homesteader]

08:22 PM on 03/22/2010

You sound like a savvy gardener and most likely already know this, but perhaps other readers don't. Watch your tomatoes near dawn and dusk as soon as you spot leaves stripped by a hornworm on your tomatoes. They feed during these times, so if you look at noon, you'll never find them. A daily visual inspection of the tomatoes with a thorough search for the culprit (a thick, big green caterpillar) is the quickest way to save your tomatoes.

I despise the pretty cabbage looper moths for what they do to my cabbage and other crucis.

http://ozarkhomesteader.wordpress.com/

[ProfessorBrooks]

04:40 PM on 03/23/2010

Yep, it's those fat lime green ones--it is creepy watching them double their size once or twice a day. And since the whole point is to do it without pesticides, I am out their picking them off one at a time--sometimes a few hundred of them. Ah, the sacrifices I make for a good tomato down south!

[grumpyfarmer]

10:33 AM on 03/21/2010

How about some advice on sweet potatoes? First, I have heard they like poorer soil, is this true? Second, we have three growing sprouts, what do I do to make plants from those sprouts?

[paliuli]

12:03 AM on 03/22/2010

Let the sprouts get as long as your hand at least, and then you just plant them in a little mound of dirt, or a hole, they will root and send out runners. In about 90 days you should have some sweet potatoes. I use them as ground cover. They will grow in any soil, but if you give them too much nitrogen they will produce more leaves than roots.

[WIpatriot]

09:08 PM on 03/20/2010

Up here in the frozen tundra, we're still a month away from any real planting. But we did set up the indoor greenhouse and have started just a couple of veggies and flowers from seed...moon flowers take like forever to get going.

[kellabeck]

09:05 PM on 03/20/2010

Do not expect to see any of these species in your garden if you live in North America.

[bboyy]

08:28 PM on 03/20/2010

tip #1- stay off of farmville

[topkatnc]

08:47 PM on 03/21/2010

I am shocked how so many people are crazy over that...I tried it...but I didn't find it entertaining at all....

[Carsy]

09:17 PM on 03/21/2010

I know, I am thinking of cancelling my FB because I have so many friends sending me useless s*** from that silly app.

[thegardenbuzz]

05:39 PM on 03/20/2010

Native plants play a huge role in benefitting butterflies; trees are surprisingly the most important source of value for Lepidoptera survival. In addition, be sure to plant larval host plants as well as nectar plants. http://www.thegardenbuzz.com/2010/03/top-ten-butterfly-plants-this-list-might-surprise-you.html

[Ozark Homesteader]

04:27 PM on 03/20/2010

I think in planting a garden that it's important to remember that it is easier (and more practical) to plant in phases. If you've never had a garden before or are expanding, start by laying black plastic everywhere that you want to plant. Cover the edges and some spots in the middle to omit light and air so that existing vegetation will die where you want to plant first. Then turn the soil and plant a little at a time, moving the plastic as one area is prepped. This way gardening can fit your schedule and not take over your life.

Know too that even if life keeps you from planting the way you want to plant, you can still get things done. I had "major" surgery on Tuesday and am on severe restrictions until May 1. However, I planted before surgery and stabilized the garden. Now while I recuperate, I am starting more warm-weather plants indoors. With a little planning and help moving things, I can keep growing my garden. My schedule for the garden this year is not ideal, but I can make it work. http://ozarkhomesteader.wordpress.com/

[Wickerman]

02:08 PM on 03/20/2010

Don't use GRASS clippings as mulch unless you want grass growing where ever you use it--and it's impossible to get rid of...there's always a seed in there

[WIpatriot]

08:59 PM on 03/20/2010

I've been mulching 15 of my 25 years as a gardener, and I can say that I've never had this problem. Firstly, my grass clippings generally stay on the lawn. Secondly, I sweep up clippings occasionally to use as a bed much to keep weeds from taking hold. Thirdly, if you're composting clippings, you need to turn the pile often and keep it hot (and moist) enough to break down the materials.

[jeb50]

01:03 PM on 03/20/2010

First off get the kid with the butterfly net out of the garden. Butterflies are as important as bees for pollenation.

[thegardenbuzz]

05:32 PM on 03/20/2010

It is not the scent of basil that deters pests, it is the tachinid wasps attracted the basil's blooms that parasitize the tomato hormworm that keeps your tomatoes looking good. Most companion planting lore is anecdotal, while some science explains the rest, but not in the terms usually presented. Get your facts straight and you'll be a happier, more succesful gardener.

[Okieborn]

03:00 PM on 03/21/2010

Yes !