Landscaping Q&A: NJ Gardener Asks for Springtime Garden-Starting Tips

A New Jersey Gardener Writes...

Dear Yard Fairy,

I'm writing from NJ, where the blanket of snow that covered my little garden patch for the last month is finally disappearing!

This will be my third year as a novice organic gardener. You would think that after 3 summers of growing quite the bounty of produce, I'd be better at this... but every spring it seems I'm still taking the haphazard approach. So I thought I'd email you a photo of my garden bed and ask for some expert advice!

The area that's occupied by my garden is I want to say 25 feet, which is pretty small. About half of the garden area is covered in shade by 4 pm during the hottest time of year. I planted cucumber and squash vines and a random extra tomato in that spot. The cukes produced but the other two seemed to crave a bit more sunshine.

I found out that my gardening technique mimics that of Chinese mound gardening. I assure you, this was entirely by accident. First, I piled my beds too high with organic soil, and then I crammed in entirely too many plants. The result was actually pretty good, considering it was quite a jungle by mid-July. I am told that the Chinese way causes the roots to spread downward rather than outward, so you can fit more into a small space.

As you can see, there are some dead, stringy things strewn about, and some half-croaked collards that managed to survive the winter temperatures somehow. Last year I brought in organic soil from a local farm, but I guess it had seeds in it because I had these creepy, vining weeds snaking throughout my garden which I had to constantly pull out as they were choking out my veggies.

Here's a picture of what the garden looked like last year when things started growing. Not bad, though you can definitely see those invasive weed seeds sprouting everywhere!

So my questions to you are related to soil prep and garden bed formation. Can you give me a general recommendation of what to do here to get a decent garden this year? Do you recommend rototilling?? Do I need to bring in more organic soil? What about all the rot - what do I do with that? Can I plant things in the same spots they were last year? And how about the partially-shaded side bed?

Thanks for your ideas!

Dina, Novice NJ Gardener

The Yard Fairy Responds:

Hi Dina,

Thanks for submitting your gardening question to The Yard Fairy Q&A! Now is a great time to be thinking about garden plans in NJ. Meanwhile, spring has arrived in San Diego, hooray! We'll try to send some of the warm, sunny weather your way...

Here are my suggestions for your garden-starting dilemmas. Hope these help!

1. To stop the weed seeds in their tracks: either mulch over the entire area, or use a cover crop that will grow quickly and cover the weed seeds. The cover crop also improves the nitrogen level in the soil. Clover is a good example of a crop which does this well.

2. Here's how to prepare your beds for the growing season: Once the ground is no longer frozen, you can turn it with a shovel. Use the shovel to chop up the decaying plants and plow these back into the soil as well. You can also use a rototiller to turn over/aerate the soil, but there is of course the chance of over-tilling it which you definitely do not want.

3. For the best quality produce, do a crop rotation. Try to remember where you put certain plants last year, and move them to a different spot in the garden this year. This way, you can avoid stressing the soil by depleting it of too many of the same nutrients in the same places. Of course, if your garden patch is small, there may be only so many places where you can put things. In this case, you might try something like contained tomato pots. Or, instead of moving the plants, you can move the soil and layer new organic matter on top.

4. Keep the big guys (a.k.a. tomato plants, eggplants, etc.) where they're not going to shade out the little guys (lettuce, carrots). A garden that is directly north of your house or any large building will not get as much sun as a garden that is to the south of such a shade-producing structure. Additionally, tall plants should be planted north of shorter plants so as not to shade them out, either.

5. Try solarization. This is where you cover the soil with plastic to let the sun hit it for a period of time. This pre-warms the soil and may also kill out the weed seeds. The best time to solarize your garden beds is in the spring after you've prepared the beds but a few weeks before you're ready to plant.

Happy organic gardening, and let me know how it goes!

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