There may be no greater satisfaction to a gardening aficionado than watching your spring garden bloom. Sitting back on your lawn and watching your garden shine with a natural and beautiful array of planet life can be a relaxing and stress-relieving process. There is a certain skill behind creating and caring for the perfect spring garden that requires patience, love, and attention to detail. That hard work is what makes the finished product so rewarding and fulfilling.

Whether you are planning your first garden or have been watching tomatoes ripen every spring for as long as you can remember, getting your garden off to a solid start is one of the most important things you can do to ensure success.

Here is a quick list of 7 tips for great spring gardening.

garden fertilizer

1) Get your soil ready:

Preparing your soil for a spring garden should be done as early as possible. The main process is tilling your garden area around 8 to 12 inches beneath the surface and removing any rocks or debris. The next major step is to add organic matter and fertilizer. One thing you want to avoid is tilling when your soil is too wet. The extra water will hinder plant growth.

garden weeds

2) Weeding your yard:

Weeds can be a pesky thorn in your side—especially if you let them run wild for most of the winter. Wedding is the boring and tedious work of caring for a garden, but it must be done. Start early, and do a little at a time so you won’t tire yourself out.

soil prep

3) Fertilize your garden with coffee grounds:

During the winter, you may have moved some of your shrubs to indoor planters – now’s the time to move them back out again! Using coffee grounds to prep your soil is a great way to save a little money and be a bit more ‘green’ in the process. The grounds are filled with nitrogen, a mineral that aids in vegetable and plant growth. Simply add them to your compost pile or directly into the soil itself.

water your plants

4) Use cooking water on your plants:

Watering your plants using left over cooking water is another great way to add a nutrient boost with the vitamins and minerals left behind after you have boiled some pasta, vegetables, or potatoes. Just be sure to let the water cool down before you feed it to your plants.

chamomile tea

5) Use chamomile tea to ward off plant infections:

Watering your plants with chamomile tea is a great way to help ward off bacterial and fungal infections that come with springtime. Spraying your plants with a chamomile tea mix a few times a week will help stop your seedling from damping off.

egg shells

6) Plant egg shells along with your vegetables:

Throwing some eggshells in the same hole that you will be planting your vegetables in help your plants avoid “blossom end rot” which is often cause by a calcium deficiency. Just be sure to grind up the egg shells as much as possible.

garden at night

7) Garden at night:

Many gardening experts believe that planting at night will help your garden grow faster and stronger than by planting during the day. Planting at night also maximized your water usage. Just be sure that you have the proper lighting to see what you are doing. Since the cold of the winter months might not have completely passed, you should probably wear a sweater, too!

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by Abigail Turner

Reader Comments

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Sylvia

Gardening at night sounds like a great idea! It’s always so hot during the day so not sweating as much while gardening is very appealing.

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Urwashee Saxena

I used to buy manure, but have started saving coffee grounds and egg shells. I mix the coffee grounds and eggshells in a bucket and frequently roll the contents to keep it mixed. This is what I now use instead of manure. It is very effective and all my plants react to it beautifully.

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koneko

Plants are just great. I have been doing so for years now, and always have great plant growth. Thank for the good article…

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Silas Knight

It’s good to know this about spring gardening. It’s early spring for us right now, so this is perfect to know. I’ll be sure to till the soil and then add a nice, organic fertilizer to it, like you said. That’s a nice way to start off!

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Raji Chandran

Who gives you good pure oxygen, shade, fruits and flowers? Plants are just great. I like reading the blogs on growing and benefits of plants. Even watching images of the plants gives a sense of peace to our mind. Keep posting more.

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rajesh kumar

Growing plants are more good than having pets. To see the plants grow and blossom is an experience which no one can define. Good work and keep posting more.

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Julie Fasnacht

I am so ready to start my garden,one thing I do when I turn the soil is I mix in shredded news paper and dryer lint

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Albert

Very interesting about recycling cooking water. Love that idea. All that water down the drain is stupid. Like your site, too.

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Darryl Waterstraat

Josh and Brent, another tip when starting plants indoors, use the FOAM egg cartons and save up 6-8 cartons of used egg shells and put them into the empty FOAM cartons, fill egg shell halves with starter soil, Plant 2-3 seeds in each egg shell half and water about 1 tbsp water to each egg shell every other day until plants emerge then water as needed. When the plants are large enough to transplant outdoors (weather allowing, of course), prepare your garden spot and remove plant with egg shell from egg carton, gently crush shell and plant as usual planting egg shell along with the plant and starter soil. I have been doing so for years now, and always have great plant growth. Thanks for the tips you sent, have been using all of then except the water from cooking pasta, etc, will try this this year as well. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks after all. Thanks from Darryl. Fell free to use my tip in your 7 tips for growing blog as Number eight

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nantucketdaffodil

Great tips! We garden organically, and as use no GMO seeds as much as possible! Our favorite organic fertilizer is Neptune’s fish emulsion. Honestly, it’s the only thing we use. Also, a good soil in raised beds will keep the weeds down. Look for horse farms/farms that have been composting…we get ours from a farm whose soil has been certified organic, and have gone 2 seasons without having to weed our 15 raised beds.

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Heaven

I’d never thought of using my veggie water before….what a great idea 🙂 thank you

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Dan Chapman

Tips are great!Our trip to Sharon Springs was magical last fall.We are in LATE Spring here in Virginia so we will try to push some of our warm
weather up north to you all. Southern Greetings!

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Gloria J Childers

All great ideas. Thanks. At first I thought the egg was a Robins egg, but then thought it was probably an Easter egg. Love your page AND products. Keep up the good work fellas. 🙂

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Christine burd

Thank you for the gardening tips . I will be trying to use these as I garden this summer

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Abigail Turner

Hi Sundevilpeg,

I appreciate your input on my post. I’ve always had good experience with coffee grounds but it is interesting to hear your feedback on the process. I’m going to try your advice next time and will report back on how it goes. Thanks again for reading and taking the time to comment!

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sundevilpeg

The time to salt your pasta (and potatoes) is while you are boiling it, and it should be good and salty. Water your plants with pasta/potato cooking water? I think not! Also, uncomposted coffee grounds should not be added directly to garden soil; the decomposition process actually robs the soil of nitrogen. Put it in the compost pile, should you have one, or use it as earthworm food, along with spoiled fruit, chopped past-its-prime lettuce, etc. WAY more efficient than composting, and faster by a factor of about 100.

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