Happy First Day of Spring! Let's eat.

It's the First Day of Spring - our favorite day of the year YAY!

Let's eat.

Right? Because that's our favorite thing to do on this favorite day of the year YAY!

But we don't want to hog it all for ourselves, so we also share the love and get everyone eating, including all of the billions of tiny helpful soil creatures and bacteria and microorganisms that are going to help grow our food this spring, too.

We're givers like that.

But before I lose you to "But I thought we were talking food, here", let's quick talk about how to feed your soil.

Remember how I was all "Cut down your cover crops" and everything? Well, that was the first step in feeding your soil. So, good job. You're nearly done feeding the soil. Just a few things left to do before we can talk about feeding YOU and you can have your first homegrown salad of spring.

(YAY!)

Since your cover crop is all chopped down into salad sized pieces and all disappearing at an incredible rate in the spring sunshine (don't worry, I'm not going to tell you to go out to the garden with a dinner fork and ranch dressing), it's time to pour on some compost or other organic amendment (we like Gardner & Bloome's Harvest Supreme quite a lot), rake it out and water it in.

This is like setting the table for your soil's bacteria and helpful organisms, and they'll get right to work breaking that chopped cover crop down into rich soil that your spring and summer crops will love.

Our soil friends say, "YAY!" and also, "YUM"

Love so much that they'll grow huge and healthy and productive, which means that you'll have huge, healthy and productive harvests this summer. Which means more eating. Which means more YAY!

Now you say, "YAY!", because obviously.

And we're all about YAY!

Because it's the First Day of Spring, remember?

YAY!

So, let's eat then!

If you already have lettuce and spring greens started, here are our some of our favorite salads and dressings all fixed up and ready for you to dive into headlong in a frenzy of IT'S SPRING LET'S EAT!

If you don't already have spring greens going, may we recommend a container salad garden that's so easy to grow and also so good looking that you could even use it as a centerpiece at the table so that your dining companions can serve themselves for once?

Yes we can. Recommend it.

And you can have it in less than a month. Just a few weeks even - now that the light levels are rising by the day!

Yay!

Materials
A smallish wooden box like a wine crate
New potting soil
Lettuce seeds
Unsoftened water (softened water has salts in it - no good)

To make

1. Fill your box about halfway to the top with potting soil
2. Sprinkle your lettuce seeds across the surface
3. Place it in a sunny window (with a tray underneath to catch water) or outside in part shade to full sun. Water in and keep the soil mo-ist until the seeds germinate (a few days). 
4. Keep the soil mo-ist as the seeds grow
5. Harvest your lettuce once it has a few true leaves (anything after the second leaf is a true leaf) using scissors or by just pinching off the leaves with your fingers and leave a a leaf or two behind so that the plants will continue to produce new leaves (AKA salad) for you

YAY!, right?

Happy First Day of Salad...ahem...I mean, Spring!

It's time to make a mess

It's been raining. OH HAS IT BEEN RAINING YAY WOO FINALLY!

Phew.

And it's about to clear off a little and warm up a little and hey wait! What's that I see? Is it big vigorous cover crops going to flower?! 

Why yes indeedy.

It's time - before we get all underway with spring planting fun and excitement and WHICH TOMATO VARIETIES ARE YOU TRYING THIS YEAR and such - to prep that soil for a big planting season ahead.

And the first step in spring soil prep is to take down those cover crops and winter food crops with enough pre-planting time on the calendar for those crops' plant material to be broken down and incorporated into your garden soil.

Let's make a mess, shall we?   

When to cut down cover crops

This is always a big question because, when you look at the garden with its bushy cover crops growing all lush and green when everything else in the garden looks rather puny and uninspired, it's hard to make yourself get the shears out to cut that good looking stuff down to the ground.

Aw, po-po cover crops, dying an early death at the hands of the ruthless gardener.

But as soon as you see blossoms hitting the soil and flower buds forming - IT'S TIME.

Flowers on the soil means beans on the plants. CHOP CHOP!

And when your last frost date is March 1 and you're planning to start planting by the beginning of April, you want to give those ruthlessly chopped crops at least a few weeks to a full month to be broken down in the soil.

This way, when you go to plant into that garden, all evidence of your brutal destruction will have vanished and, in its place, will be gorgeous healthy soil full of rich organic matter and happy soil microorganisms and bacteria ready to help out your spring and summer crops.

You want this.

How to cut down cover crops

Once you've made peace with the whole BUT THE COVER CROPS ARE SO GORGEOUS THAT I HATE TO CUT THEM DOWN, get out your shears and pruners and get out there.

The key to getting the full bang for your cover crop buck is to get the plant material cut into small pieces and to get the plants themselves cut off at soil level. 

By doing these two things, you'll give the soil microorganisms and bacteria lots of material to work on and in the right bite-sized pieces so that they can make quick work of your cover crop. By cutting your plants off at the soil level, rather than pulling them out completely, you leave the roots in the soil for the microorganisms and bacteria to work on and add lots of organic matter to the soil, too.

When you're done taking down your cover crop it should look like a chopped salad out there. If you have big stalks left over, save those for building your compost pile (stacked like logs at intervals in your compost pile lets air circulate so it never smells like poo) rather than trying to chop them up into your soil.

Why to cut down cover crops

Sure, we could leave the plants in the garden and let them go to flower and then to seed and then die back on their own time, but there really are good reasons to cut them back before they've set flowers and seed.

• Nutrients - Once plants start to set fruit/seed, they're starting to use the nutrient reserves in their roots. You want those nutrients, especially from legume crops (for nitrogen) like fava beans, bell beans and vetch, going into your soil. Be ruthless! Chop chop!
• Pest control - The longer plants live on in the garden, the more susceptible they are to disease and pests. So, that gorgeous mound of mustard greens and mini orchard of broccoli will be the perfect place for the first hatches of harlequin beetles, aphids and cabbage moths once the rains clear off for a split second.
• Planting - You want to grow a spring garden, right? Right. So, you need to make room for them and prepare that soil accordingly.

So - get out there and get to chopping. If it makes you feel better, think about all of the happy tomatoes and cucumbers and melons and beans and peppers and and and that you'll get to plant soon into that gorgeous healthy soil.

Plus, you get to make a mess, which is kinda fun, too.

Poo and pretty flowers

It's the first day of spring so let's make poo brew!

What? Isn't that what you do to celebrate?

Sorry, first let's look at some pretty flowers...

Ahhh...happy spring to us all.

Now let's make poo brew. Or, more specifically, worm casting tea.

This poo brew, or worm casting tea for the conservatives of you out there, is simply the harvested worm castings from your worm bin steeped in water and then strained of debris.

This tea can then be applied as a gentle all-purpose fertilizer to young vegetable seedlings and perennials alike.

You can spray it on plants' leaves or water it in to the soil to give them a good nutritious boost and to add an extra layer of defense against pests and pathogens.

You don't have to worry about burning your plants with worm casting tea like you might with other fertilizers and you can feed your growing plants every other week or so for increased productivity.

So let's do this...

1.  Add a handful of worm castings to a five gallon bucket filled with about three gallons of raw (unsoftened) water or rain water.
   
   
   
2. Stir the castings into a dark brew and allow it to sit uncovered for 24-48 hours. You can come back and stir it about halfway through if you like, but don't let it sit for too long because it will go anaerobic and stink to high heaven. Seriously, now.
   
3. Once it has been sitting and the solids have settled at the bottom, pour the tea through a fine mesh strainer into another bucket. Don't let any bits of debris fall into your strained tea because it will clog your sprayer.
   
   
   
4. Pour your strained tea into a pump sprayer if you want to apply to your plants' leaves or into a watering can to apply directly to the soil.
   
   
   

That's it.

If you want to use the solids that settled during the steeping process (How resourceful! I knew I liked you.), they can be spread alongside established plants as a nutritious side dressing.

Feed young seedlings with worm compost tea after they've been in their growing medium for about three weeks to replenish the nutrients lost during leaching and feed established plants every other week or so during the growing season.

Is it tea time? I'd like some crisps, too, if I may.