As the garden wakes up from winter

Winter is slowly letting go of its grip here in south Germany. On my terrace it’s time for some spring cleaning in the garden and to prepare the soil for new plants.

I pruned some branches on my apple tree yesterday – not because I think trees actually need it to grow healthy but to keep it small enough. Having it grow too high and wide would make it impossible to move it in the future.

I also pruned my blackberry bush and my climbing rose (that might have been a bit early, but I hope it will survive the treatment OK anyway).

I had a look at my blueberry plant that I thought had died during summer and now it was shooting up new branches. Maybe there is hope after all. Sometimes all you need to do is leave things alone to let them heal on their own. The moss in the pot is thriving at least. I’ll have to give it some more space soon I think.

Some herbs are already coming up and even some lettuce leaves in the container that catches the most sun. That’s so nice to see after having had snow just some days ago.

Time for some garden planning

During the weekend I will go buy some new soil and mulch to refresh the containers that have sunk down a bit. One thing I noticed during the last season was that some containers had a bit too little soil and dried out fast. I will cover the soil better this year and add a few centimeters to the soil layer.

I will need to refresh my mind a bit on what plants I had in each container to make sure to implement crop rotation to try to prevent diseases, pests etc. I guess I will have to do some preventive work against cabbage butterfly this year. Soft soap + water that you spray on is something that many recommend + probably mixing it up with even more strong smelling herbs and so on.

I will sit down and select what plants to grow this season and this year I’m definitely investing in better quality organic seeds and plants. Last year’s experiment with some supermarket seeds showed that you mostly get what you pay for. There were some positive exceptions but also some disappointments in terms of germination. I also want to go for some more rare and local varieties to get something you cannot buy in the supermarket (not that I buy much veggies there anyway…).

Then it’s time to start drawing up seedlings indoors and wait for the hardest frost nights to be over to really get going out in the garden.