IT'S WARM, SHOULD I START MY GARDEN?

Written by: Brian Neudorff

I want to make it clear, I personally know nothing about gardening but here in the weather office we get a lot of questions about weather and how it might impact peoples gardens. This time of year, especially when it gets warm, people want to know if all the cold of winter is over and if they can get started. I may not be able to tell you when you should plant a particular plant but I can tell you this, we are not done with the cold overnight temperatures dropping to or below freezing. If you're worried about frost, on average, we can expect our last frost sometime between the middle of May to even the end of May.

Because I know NOTHING about gardening I have to check with those who know more than me. To answer some of the questions I get I checked in with our News 8 at Sunrise Garden expert Nellie Gardner as well as Lisa Gustavson, who I met on Twitter, @getinthegarden and who has a Gardening web site: GetintheGarden.com

Since we are going to be so unseasonably warm today and Saturday with temperatures getting into the 80s. Even Easter is warm but not as warm with highs in the mid 60s, you may be tempted to start garden work, but do you know what is good and bad to do this early into the spring season. Here are some of the tips I received from both Nellie & Lisa:

Prepare for the Season:

• Both agree that this is very important. Look over all of your gardening tools. You will want to inspect and clean them. Then sharpen, repair or replace any that require it.
• Before you tackle any planting you might want to make sure your existing plants or trees are ready for the new growing season. Prune berry brambles and fruit bushes as well as grapevines and ornamentals. Cut back flower stalks and rake out dry debris from beds. Remove thick, matted wet leaves from beds by hand. Fertilize spring bulbs lightly with bone meal worked into the beds.
• Spring is the time to enrich the garden with compost and manure if it wasn’t done the fall before.

In The Actual Garden:

• If you're ready and just itching to get the green thumb dirty by planting then our experts said you can plant but make sure they are hearty plants that can with stand the cold.
• Seeds for spinach, escarole, peas, lettuce, fava beans, turnips, radishes, dill, fennel, parsley, chervil, mache and swiss chard and sets of potatoes, onions, leeks and shallots can be planted in prepared garden beds.

Finally, although the last few days have been dry we've had some rain and snow melt the last few weeks and the soil is still wet. They also say, Never work in the garden when it's very wet, soil compaction is lethal to plant roots. Because it's nice you may be tempted but do not start tilling yet either, wait. Because of all the rain that has occurred along the northeast remember rain can cause small seeds to be washed away. Cover the rows lightly with brush or mulch until the seeds sprout. As I mentioned above our frost season is not over, and is a threat until the end of May (and sometimes later) recycle plastic milk jugs with the bottoms removed to protect young seedlings.

I hope this helps, I know from all the advice I got I could start my own garden, if I had room for one and wasn't renting. If you ever have a question feel free to ask. I can tell you it won't get answered right away but I will take it to our experts and give you the answer.