April Rain Wakes Up Our Gardens and Washes into Our Waterways
We are happily into April rain season, and my garden and lawn are waking up. My vegetable seedlings are inside until Mother’s Day because of the possibility of frost, but my onions and garlic are already several inches high, and parsley is sprouting up after having self seeded last season. Daffodils are coming up, and while not native take little care and are beautiful.
April rains wash everything from our yards into nearby streams, lakes, and rivers, or down into our underground aquifers. As we all go back into our gardens we can renew our dedication to protecting our water quality by focusing on soil and plant health and avoiding synthetic chemicals in our yards.
This year my husband and I are embarking on a renovation of our garden with native plants, which is really exciting. So far still in the planning stage, we are chomping at the bit to pull out the boxwood in front of our house. We have been fortunate (so far) not to be struck by boxwood blight. Blight causes rapid defoliation and is very contagious. But we get breakage from heavy snow and ice and I am not good at protecting our boxwood with burlap or running out and clearing all of the branches. We have a lot of boxwood and I just don’t want to spend that much time any more. Don’t misunderstand, there is much that I love about boxwood. I love the structure, and I love that they are the one thing deer don’t touch. I have used them to enclose native plants that can still look pretty even when left to be wildly unruly because of the framing boxwood. But I will be very happy to have a change. The focus on native plants is exciting to us, both because it will support our birds and insects, but also because it will have an updated and very American look.
The first task here this spring is our turf. As a cool weather crop, it is very happy even though there was snow on the ground only a week or two ago. I overseeded with grass seed to outcompete weed seeds that germinate in the spring. I also sent out soil tests.
We also had an area between our riding ring fence and our deer fence that is sloped and became overwhelmed by invasive weeds. Before everything started growing again my husband cut these back. We are now trying to decide weather we will cover the area with tarps for a year or try to seed it and keep cutting back the weeds.
Staying one step ahead often precludes problems serious enough to make us even want to use chemicals.
– Think about overseeding your lawn to outcompete weed seeds.
– Send a soil test if you are having problems or if you haven’t done one in a long time to head off problems.
– If your soil test shows that you need to replace a nutrient in your soil, remember that organic supplements need active soil bacteria to work well, so wait until it is at least 65 degrees at night to apply.