Spring is the best time to start gardening for beginners or almost everyone whether they are intermediate or advanced in gardening. Spring season is very effective for plants to recover after dormancy, best for sowing seeds, and good to start having houseplants indoors.
Beginners ignore this beautiful and most importantly its duration for gardening but some don't even if they don't know the right methods of gardening.
But don't worry new gardeners, here I'm going to share my tips so that you can understand what are the problems you're going to face in spring and how to deal with them easily.
Spring gardening tips for beginners
I'm growing almost every kind of garden plant whether it is vegetables, fruits, flowers, or other houseplants. I've some valuable tips to share with you that every gardener should follow particularly in spring, especially beginner gardeners.
1. While sowing seeds in spring
- Don't be too late while sowing leafy vegetable seeds indoors if you're living in warm climates, do seeding in early spring to mid-spring. Following the summer season can be difficult and stressful for leafy vegetable plants.
- You can scatter seeds in a large container instead of sowing them in nursery beds one by one. It saves time and skips transplantation. But for single plants, you shouldn't practice it with all like flowers, cabbage, eggplant, broccoli, and other large vegetables.
- For those plants which need special treatment, you need to sow them one by one in nursery cups and transplantation later. But one thing can be helpful for you to decrease the mortality rate, you can sow multiple seeds in a single nursery bed cup.
- Don't dig too deep for small seeds. Some seeds like depth but small seeds require only half inches of soil cover otherwise they take a longer time to germinate.
2. Transplantation of young plants
- Transplantation is an almost similar process for every kind of garden plant except, for one thing, weak and stronger stems and stalks. So when you transplant weak stem young plants, you should wet your soil and slowly try to lose their roots to pick them up easily from the nursery beds. You need to be gentle with other plants as well while transplantation even if they have slightly stronger stems.
- Don't be too excited after cleanly separating the plants from nursery beds, you should already prepare the bigger pots for these young plants. Don't break leaves or stem and be very gentle till the final transplantation.
3. Garden plants' weeding in spring
- Some garden plants need regular weeding from mid-spring as plants get recover from the winter and other weeds get a chance to appear in moisture and sunlight. So keep the weeding regular in a bigger container, especially with sensitive vegetable plants.
- Don't use automatic weed picking or weed killers in your garden otherwise, you can damage your plants. Use the manual method of handpicking or a planter tool to remove weeds.
4. Fertilization of various plants in spring
- Fertilize your perennial plant pots and containers in spring as they need a boost after dormancy to get peak growth again.
- Don't use non-organic chemicals or growth boosters for your garden plants, instead, you can use organic compost or vermicompost without hesitation.
- Don't use too much compost or biomass in the garden otherwise, it can burn the plants and stop vegetable or fruit growth.
- Seasonal plants, only use fertilizers once while their transplantation.
5. Climate conditions matter in spring
- If you are living in a warm climate then you shouldn't choose the cool climate plant variety for your garden until you are growing them indoors in cooler conditions and vice-versa for a cool climate.
- Some plant gives enough output in their first growing year even if they are biennial.
- In spring, the weather can be the same but the outdoor temperature range can be different according to climate. So don't get confused about growing temperature while sowing seeds or peak growth.
6. Sunlight and shade in spring
- Provide sunlight according to plant needs and climate conditions in spring. Some plants like 5 to 7 hours of sunlight in a day and some plants can tolerate 6 to 8 hours of sunlight daily in spring.
- Don't be afraid of sunlight intensity either in a cool or warm climate in spring because sunlight doesn't get intense drastically in the spring season.
- If conditions are overcast or bright sunlight, you can shift them accordingly.
- Some plants don't like shade otherwise they get some infectious diseases that are not easy to deal with quickly. But some plants can tolerate spring shade during the daytime for up to 3 hours a day in the spring season.
7. Garden plant recovery from winter
- Pots flowers, houseplants, and other perennial plants and shrubs need recovery time and some maintenance to recover them from their dormancy period. For that, you don't need to be so aggressive with them to forceful recovery. Go step by step and follow the procedure.
- Some plants ask for pruning and trimming in spring to remove dead leaves and unnecessary bushy loads that bend the plant. So prune and trim at least once in the spring season if you have perennial plants.
- You can't do much in spring to recover plants because they need some extra duration to shift from cool to warm conditions as they peak their growth in summer.
8. Follow the plant's growing conditions
- The best step in spring that one can be very smart with their plants is to follow the procedure according to their growing conditions.
- In case of any disease, infection, or pest, you can follow the reverse procedure to prevent them and follow the basic growing conditions. These pests, diseases, and infections appear in wrong growing conditions generally.
9. While using gardening tools
- If you never touched gardening tools, though spring is the best time to start gardening tools can hurt you badly if you will not use them carefully.
- Wear at least safety gloves while using sharp gardening tools and glasses if you are trimming shrubs or trees.
- Don't use heavy tools in your garden as they cover unnecessary space, are not easy to maintain, and are quite unsuccessful with small garden plants.
- Don't let your metal tools in open moisture otherwise, they may get rust easily. Wash them after harvesting, trimming, pruning, and cutting as plants plasma may be left on them. Dry them completely and save them for future use.