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Community Corner

What Every Gardener Can Do To Get Ready Now

Tips to prepare your garden for when the rain and cold weather end.

Easter is upon us and the weather seems more like late February. 

I'm feeling right at home. As a veteran Ithaca New York farmer, I'm used to this. We had two seasons: Winter and August. Do not be lulled into complacency, for while it seems this interminable cold rain will never end, the fact is that it will, and when it does things will move very quickly.

Late cold springs are fabulous beginnings for all things perennial, preventing the premature  emergence which often leads to winter kill or frost damage. Water tables are replenished, road and driveway salts are flushed, and newly planted bulbs take their time forming roots before emergence.

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Yes, on the downside, it's too wet and cold to work your soil or plant any but the most hardy annuals. Working wet garden soil is a very bad idea, as the mud clumps you create destroy the delicate soil structure which alows proper water percolation and oxygen infusion.  

Take this time to get ready, because when the weather breaks it's all going to happen overnight and there will be no time for repairing tools and the like

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  1. Get your supplies together, your fertilizers, lime, and other amendments.  This is a good time to apply gypsum and organic fertilizers as they work slowly and will activated by the rains.  Do a soil test and adjust your ph so it matches the crop you intend to grow. 
  2. Beat the crowd and have your mowers, trimmers and tillers serviced. Sharpen blades and change the lubricants. There is nothing more frustrating than going to start your tool on the day you need it and finding out that a family of mice have been eating the insulation off the wires or the spark plug is fouled
  3. Start gathering your nursery stock.  It's too soon for warm flowering plants or tomatoes, but it's the perfect time to gather new perennials, roots and tubers, shrubs and trees, and lettuce,broccoli, or other cold crops.  Not only will you find a better selection before the weather breaks, but as soon as it does you can pop these early comers in quickly when the opportunity arises.
  4. Apply your dormant oil sprays to shrubs and trees. This will smother the eggs of offending insects whose eggs are waiting to hatch greatly reducing the need to use contact insecticides later.
  5. It's time to start with your deer repellents.  I say it every year, but it cannot be emphasised enough.  It's much easier to prevent the deer from establishing a feeding pattern on your precious plantings than it is to convince them to stop after they have begun. If your neighbors' plants taste better than yours the deer will take you off their browsing path and  it will be much easier to reinforce this as the season progresses.
  6. Take the time to remove all old plant residues from your garden areas before turning your soil.  The risk is that pathogens and pests will gain a fatal head-start before you even suspect they are present.  Take this residue to where you can incorporate it into a high temperature compost pile such as your grass clipping dump or the like.  As long as you aerate the pile adequately the high temps (160-degrees or so) will destroy them and you can safely reincorporate it in a later year.
  7. Apply a good layer of fresh compost to replenish organic matter and nutrients and blanket the bare soil helping prevent any weed seed from emerging. If you get these basics done before the weather breaks, your planting will be accomplished in a snap when the opportunity presents itself, and you'll hardly miss those early spring days gone by. Except, of course, when it comes to working on your tan.
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