Outdoors Recreation

The Observant Gardener: A Gardener’s Spring Cleaning

By Judith Canty Graves

I believe that gardening is a continuous activity throughout the year. While many people think only of spring planting, summer watering and fall harvesting, there are also two other phases: winter planning, and in early spring, preparing for the coming growing season. This starts with clearing away the accumulated winter debris from the planting beds, but for me extends into the cleanup of my gardening workspace.

Photo. by Judith Canty Graves

Along one wall of my garage I have a space with a table and some shelves where I make decisions and find tools that I need to get my garden jobs done. It is where I store the labels of plants I have grown and keep my records of different bulbs that I have planted. This is my gardening “office,” and by late winter my office is a mess. Last spring I even found some dahlia tubers that I had dug up the previous fall and forgotten about. They were hidden under a pile of tools and half empty fertilizer bags!

After months of winter hibernation, heavy clothes, cold days and dark nights, it is time for some significant spring cleaning, both in the yard and my gardening office. I consider this double spring cleaning. It is not a pleasant task because there is so much work to do, inside and out.

By early April I can’t ignore the piles in the garage any longer. All winter I look at catalogs and order seeds and other items I will need for the upcoming season. I store the new seed packets inside, but all of last year’s are in my office, where they sit in piles on the table for my future reference. Add to that garden tools, pots, plant labels, gloves and fertilizers. Because of the colder temperatures, I don’t spend much time in the garage, so the piles, which started last summer, get bigger and messier.

I know I must keep my tools and supplies somewhat organized if I want to get beautiful blooms or delicious tomatoes in summer. Once the weather turns warm, I depend on these tools and supplies to carry out the plans I spent all winter thinking about. Finally, one day the weather suddenly improves and my hour of reckoning arrives: I must clean up my space, I must get organized! When I start misplacing my gardening gloves, trowels and seeds, I resolve to tackle this job head-on and stick with it. After months of adding to the piles of garden-related clutter, I have to wade through it all to prepare for my spring yard work.

Planning and organization in any endeavor is the key to success, and gardening is no exception. I do better when my workspace is clean and orderly. There is a definite schedule for planting certain seeds and seedlings in order to reap the harvest of flowers and vegetables later. Having an orderly workspace ready in early spring is essential for keeping to this schedule. A successful growing season is always my reward and my motivation for spring cleaning!

Judith Canty Graves is a home gardener with a background in photojournalism. She lives in Asheville. To see more of her garden photography, visit TheObservantGardener.com.

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