The Top Ten Chores to do in the Spring (not necessarily in the order they appear)

1. Check your drip line and garden hoses. Flush the drip system then look for leaks and plugged emitters to repair. Buy a new garden hose if you hate the one that always kinks!

2. Clean up your yard. Winter leaves her mark and you need to erase it, it’s Spring! Grab your rake and start with the leaves, gather up twigs and sticks and empty containers filled with water. You don’t want a habitat for mosquitoes. Eliminating debris will make it more difficult for slugs, snails and other varmints to set up residence and use your garden as their shopping center.

3. Prune dead branches off trees. Don’t prune anything that’s about to bloom or that blooms in the spring. Wait until they’re done blooming before you give them a haircut. Flowering quince and forsythia are a couple of example. If you haven’t already cut off the old foliage from your perennials do it now. You might find some new green growth below the brown.

4.  Sow annuals. Some annuals can handle cool nights while others need the soil to warm a bit. Check the seed packet for specific directions. Plant annual vegetables, but be sure to keep an eye on the weather. If you plant too soon and it gets too cold, well you may be replanting. Keep asking the staff about the time frame if you’re uncertain.

5. Amend your soil. Even really great soil can use a little compost kick before it’s bombarded with plants. Plants deplete the soils nutritional value during the growing season, tomatoes for example are heavy feeders. If you’re preparing a whole bed, you can add some compost over the whole bed and work it in. If you’re just digging a whole, add the compost to the hole.

6. Water.

7. Weed. Do a little every day or even every time you walk outside. Or, pick a spot in your yard and weed there first. It’s not so overwhelming if you do it little by little.

8. Move perennials. If you don’t like a plant where it is, move it. If it has just never lived up to it’s full genetic potential, move it. If it’s old and woody, dig it up and plant a new plant- either the same one or something you’ve never tried before. The up side to our extended freeze and many plants not making it is that you can now try a new plant.

9. Divide late summer and fall blooming perennials such as yarrow and asters.

10.  Turn your compost pile or start a new one. Remember, never put diseased plants into the compost.

11. Okay, I know I said the top ten…maybe this should be number 1: Discover and be awed by the sights around you: the buds on the trees ready to burst. Like someone who can’t keep a secret only the blooms let you in on it if you’re watching them. Look inside that peony and see the pollen clinging to the legs of the bees. Smell the air. Feel the dirt between your toes and under your nails. Breathe, plant and reap the rewards the earth gives back to you.