Spring officially arrives this week. Winter is very slowly coming to an end — finally! Are you itching to start preparing your lawn and garden? Can’t blame you for that.

To help you get a head start, the experts at Husqvarna a large producer of lawn and garden equipment, have come up with the following six tips to get the most out of your lawn and garden this year:

1. Clean up, blow and rake: Start the spring-cleaning when the snow has melted and the soil dries up a bit. Remove layers of leaves that can lead to the grass moulding or decaying. (They recommend the Husqvarna 125B blower to get the leaves off the lawn, without disturbing the grass and soil.)

2. Clear away weeds: Get rid of any weeds as early as possible, before the sun gives it energy to start growing. Also be sure to cut away withered leaves and grass from cultivated parts of the garden.

3. Loosen the soil: Soil loosening makes it possible for the oxygen to reach the roots of the plants – and makes for a better-looking flowerbed. In smaller beds hand tools do the trick, but if you’re working with larger areas, a rotary cultivator is best.

4. Trim the hedges: A good-looking hedge starts with the hedge cutters. Hedges with leaves should be trimmed during winter or early spring. Conifers are better trimmed during the growing period, one time early spring and once in the middle of the summer. (They recommend the Husqvarna 122HD60, designed to be easy for home owners  to operate.)

5. Mow the lawn: The lawn needs time to recover after the winter. Remember not to cut the grass too short. With a grass level of 5-9 cm you will have a fine, sustainable lawn.

6. Trim: The secret to an immaculate-looking garden is in the detail. If you want your lawn and flower beds to look good, make sure you trim the edges!

Follow Irene Seiberling on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ISeiberling

Remember not to cut grass too short as you prepare your lawn this spring. HUSQVARNA photo

Laura Bruno is an organic gardener and food security advocate with a passion for edible landscaping, year-round harvest and herbal allies. Bruno helped organize Goshen’s Share the Bounty Week, which focused on making locally-grown food more accessible to people around the area.

If you have questions for Bruno about gardening, leave them in the comments below. She has agreed to answer them between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Tuesday, March 18.

1. Survey your growing space

Most fruits and vegetables require at least six to eight hours of direct sunlight per day, and sometimes even more for larger harvests. Your ideal garden space for summer staples like tomatoes and cucumbers would offer a southern exposure with dappled shade from the west for those hot afternoons, but see what you actually have. When looking at what’s sunny in March, consider trees that might fill in with leaves and also remember that shadows will be shorter with a higher summer sun. If you can’t find anywhere with enough sunlight, expand your perspective. Does your front yard offer any growing possibilities? How about containers on a sunny porch, patio or driveway? Could trellises, towers, raised beds or hanging containers bring more plants into the light?

2. Don’t give up if you don’t have enough light

You can’t grow tomatoes, peppers and beans if you have just four hours of direct light, but many edibles do grow well in shade. I’ve had great luck with parsley, Chinese greens (bok choi and tat soi), celery and even broccoli. I’ve also grown nettles in an isolated shady plot, which kept them from taking over everything. They’re an invasive weed, but they make fabulous soups, smoothies and provide tonics for just about anything that ails you. (Don’t eat them after they flower. Actually cut them down when they begin to flower, or you’ll have way more nettles than you want next year.) If you haven’t sprayed your yard with anything toxic, then you can also eat those pesky dandelions! The leaves, roots and flowers are all edible and were originally brought to America by European gardeners. Other herbs like potted mint, lemon balm and anise hyssop also grow well in shade.

3. Grow up

If you don’t have much sun or space, then you’ll want to maximize the growing areas you do have. Vertical gardening letss you make better use of space, and it offers a chance for plants to climb out of the shady ground towards more available light. Metal, nylon or wooden trellises allow more airflow, protecting your plants from certain diseases, along with rabbits. Raised beds, especially tiered beds can also help with critter or space issues. A round design will let you grow more plants closer together by creating micro-climates and extra ways to reach for light. People make raised beds and towers from untreated wood, old tires, different size pots, burlap bags or from many commercial products created to look nice and safely house your soil. When recycling old materials, please make sure they’re non-toxic if you plan to grow food in them.

4. Explore community gardens and yard swaps/rentals

Goshen offers lots of community and neighborhood gardens. You can find a list here. The Elkhart Local Food Alliance (ELFA) is a great place to start if you’d like to find a community garden in Elkhart. You can find more information about ELFA and Elkhart opportunities here. In addition to community gardens, ELFA offers workshops on topics like seed starting and building cold frames for extending seasons. Look around your neighborhood, too. Many people with sunny yards don’t have time or the physical ability to garden, but they would gladly share their space in exchange for part of your harvest. Lots of people grow fabulous gardens in a yard besides their own. You won’t know if you don’t ask.

5. Start with good quality soil

Plants are only as healthy as the soil they grow in, so you’ll want to prioritize a good potting mix for containers and a rich, well-draining, composted soil for raised beds or in-ground growing. Garden centers can help you decide what kind of blend would work well for your situation. If you have access to composted organic matter (compost), fish emulsion, rotted manure or worm castings (compost made by earthworms), your garden will reward you with stronger, healthier plants. If planting in the ground, I’d advise a soil test at least to determine acidity or alkalinity of your soil. A more specific soil test will tell you if you need any common amendments like lime, sulfur, magnesium or boron. Organic mulch from leaves, compost and/or untreated wood chips will feed your soil and help it to hold in valuable nutrients and moisture, which means richer soil and less watering for you.

6. Take advantage of free books, classes and gardening gatherings

Public libraries offer lots of books on gardening. Books by experts can save you years of disappointing experiments and mistakes. In Purdue Extension Elkhart County workshops, Master Gardeners offer their knowledge and skills to the community. Beginners and longtime gardeners alike benefit from sharing experiences. On March 22, 2014, Transition Goshen will host an Open Space event for anyone interested in gardening. The meeting will help identify specific opportunities to work together and grow community as well as food. Saturday, March 22, 1-4 p.m. at Goshen City Church of the Brethren, 203 North 5th Street.

7. Know your planting zone

Elkhart County is in growing zone 5b, which is ever so slightly warmer than zone 5. Lower numbered zones mean colder, and higher numbers indicate warmer climates. Plants and seeds usually list a range of zones. Make sure whatever you want to plant grows in zone 5.

8. Once you’ve found a space, choose your seeds or plants

Grow what you like to eat! If you decide to start plants from seeds, heirloom varieties can offer the best varieties for our specific region, as well as unusual characteristics like special flavors or colors. Maple City Market and John Sherck at the Goshen Farmers Market carry organic heirloom seeds known to grow especially well in the area, but you can also find seeds at big name stores or online. You’ll need to follow directions for seed type. A dusting of cinnamon or spritz of chamomile tea helps protect young sprouts and seedlings from developing fungal issues, also called “damping off.” If you’d rather purchase and transplant seedlings (young plants instead of seeds), the Farmers Market lets you purchase from local farmers so that you can directly ask them for growing tips on these particular plants. Many stores also offer seedlings closer to our last frost (usually May 10-15), but you will often need to do your own research about those plants.

9. Grow flowers!

Not only will flowers beautify your garden – they’ll also make your own work easier. Pretty plants like borage, calendula, yarrow, nasturtiums and marigolds deter pests and invite in “beneficials” like bees, butterflies and bugs that eat the bugs that eat your plants. When your garden looks nice, you’ll also derive more pleasure from the sights, smells and tastes of nature.

10. Involve friends and family, especially picky eaters

No store-bought produce tastes as fresh and delicious as fruits and vegetables pulled straight from the garden. Many children who “don’t like vegetables” simply don’t like eating something that traveled 2,000 miles before hitting their plates. Crisp, fresh produce nurtured from seed or seedling brings magic to children, teens and adults. There’s nothing quite like a sun-ripened tomato or a just snapped pea. When people witness how food grows, they begin to connect with their food in new and exciting ways. When people garden together, they begin to connect with each other in deeper and more meaningful ways.

Seeds! A word pretty much every gardener loves to hear. Happily browsing your garden seed catalogs and hauling out your existing vegetable seed stash signals that spring is near — or already here. It’s a time of planning, dreaming, mapping and imagining the homegrown harvests to come.

Watch this video to get some basic tips about garden seeds, such as organizing seeds by month so you can easily find what you need to sow as the growing season progresses. You’ll also get tips on understanding some of the terms you’ll come across in your garden seed catalogs. Knowing the common designations for seeds can help you tailor your seed order to best fit your needs and goals for the year.

The video also provides a handy chart on how long seeds of various crops generally stay viable. Germination rates will decrease over time, and some seeds will last longer than others and still achieve good germination, while with other crops — such as lettuce — you will likely have better luck replacing older seed with fresh seed.

Get More Tips With These Great Gardening Resources

The tool mentioned in the video — our popular Vegetable Garden Planner — can help you map out your garden design, space crops, know when to plant which crops in your exact location, and much more.

Try our gardening apps, including our When to Plant App, Garden Insects Guide and Food Gardening Guide, for lots of essential garden know-how.

Need crop-specific growing information? Browse our Crops at a Glance Guide for advice on planting and caring for dozens of garden crops.

Happy gardening!

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Shelley Stonebrook is MOTHER EARTH NEWS magazine’s main gardening editor. She’s passionate about growing healthy, sustainable food and taking care of our environment. Follow her on Twitter, Pinterest and Google+.

Tony Fulmer

Event:
25 Cool Garden Ideas You May Not Know
Thursday, March 20
11:00 a.m.
Chicago Flower and Garden Show
Navy Pier
Chicago

www.chicagoflower.com

Chalet Landscape, Nursery Garden Center
3132 Lake Avenue
Wilmette
www.ChaletNursery.com

Tony’s Tips:

Re-potting:
Get the plant or plants you’re re-potting. Fill the container they’re going into with soil until you get within a few inches of the top. Then pull the plant out of the pot, place the pot in the desired final container. Fill all around the empty pot with soil, tamp to firm. Slide the empty pot out gently and replace with the root ball of the plant you’re transplanting. Firm the soil again and water. It’s really a better way to re-pot, especially when you have plants that rest on the ground and sprawl. Much faster and less potential damage to the plants.

Aggressive Plants:
There are a lot of great garden plants that have desirable characteristics, but are invasive. A couple of great examples of plants that can bully their way around the garden are the mints or Beebalm. They take off and even a small section of root becomes a new plant. One way to control garden “thugs” is to get a large 5-gallon plastic nursery pot and cut the bottom out of it. Sink that pot in the garden, but leave the top 1-2” lip above the surrounding soil. Place the desired plant in the pot. That will contain the root system and slow the spread dramatically. In a few years when the pot is plant-full dig the pot up, pull the plant apart and start all over again.

Tools:
Gardening is like cooking — having the right tools can make the difference between making a job quick and easy, or long and tedious. I wouldn’t be without hand rakes for my garden. They help you pick up mulch, weeds, grass, just about anything, in a fraction of the time that it would take with your bare hands.

Green Tip:
Roses have a reputation for being garden plants that you have to spray for fungus, like blackspot. One of the things you may want to consider is using sulphur, a naturally occurring element, that happens to have fungicide-suppressing properties. So, in April after you’ve removed the winter protection, pruned your roses back and done your spring cleanup, consider applying a half cup of sulphur on the ground under the drip line to reduce blackspot. Then you can put your mulch over the top of the sulphur. That, along with watering your roses from below, rather than over the top, should make a big difference in the amount of blackspot your roses experience during the growing season.

When you swat at a bee in the garden, remember that it’s not just a stinger but a pollinator — an insect, bird or mammal that enables a plant to set seed.

With 75 percent of all flowering plants requiring pollinators — a third of which are human food sources — it is imperative that we address the threats they face: habitat degradation and loss, the spread of pests and diseases, extensive pesticide use and climate change.

The honeybee is probably the most familiar pollinator, and its plight is well documented. According to a survey by Treasure Valley Beekeepers Club, 312 honeybee colonies were being managed in the Valley in fall 2012. By spring of 2013, that number was down by half. Club President Chad Dickinson, attributed much of this loss to an unusually cold winter and mismanagement by beekeepers. These issues combined with numerous others resulted in a tough year for local honeybees.

And it isn’t just honeybees, not native to the Western Hemisphere, that are in danger. North America is home to thousands of pollinating insects, including numerous species of bees, butterflies, moths, wasps, flies and beetles — all with varying habitat and forage needs. Many of these native insects, including the blue orchard bee and the Eastern bumblebee, are just as important for agricultural pollination as the non-native honeybee.

The good news is that all pollinators (native or non-native) can benefit from similar conservation strategies. Creating pollinator-friendly habitats that are free from pesticides and include diverse food sources and nesting sites will help ensure the health and survival of these beneficial organisms.

Consider dedicating a portion of your yard to pollinator habitat. Here’s how to get started:

Sunny location:

Full sun helps keep pollinators active.

Season-long blooms:

Select at least three plants that flower in each of the three blooming periods (spring, summer and fall).

Early-spring bloomers and fall bloomers are especially important.

Cluster Plantings:

On each foraging trip, bees visit flowers of a single species, so planting in small clumps will help them out.

Diversity:

Plants in your garden should have varying heights and growth habits. Not only should they bloom at different times, but they should also have flowers of various colors, shapes and sizes. This will help attract a wide range of pollinators.

Nesting sites:

A warm-season bunch grass, such as little bluestem, will provide habitat for bumblebees. A small section of bare ground is important for ground nesting bees. Bundles of hollow stems, such as bamboo or elderberry, provide nesting sites for mason bees.

Water:

Pollinators need water, too. Include a birdbath or something with a ledge for pollinators to perch and drink.

What to plant:

Native plants are typically the best for native pollinators, especially those that require specific plants for food and habitat. When selecting non-native plants, choose old varieties when possible, since some modern varieties and hybrids can be poor sources of nectar.

Casey O’Leary of Earthly Delights Farm, an urban farm and seed company in Boise, suggests purple and blue flowers, such as larkspur, borage and bee’s friend, for bumblebees, and small white flowers, such as yarrow and plants in the carrot family, for solitary bees.

She has also found that native buckwheats (Eriogonum spp.) are excellent at attracting pollinators. On her farm, O’Leary allows vegetable crops not typically grown for their seed or fruit (such as lettuce, arugula and radishes) to flower, attracting beneficial insects and providing additional nectar sources for foraging pollinators.

To find more ideas for designing and planting your pollinator garden, visit the Pollinator Pathway in the Children’s Adventure Garden at Idaho Botanical Garden (visitor details at idahobotanicalgarden.org), and ask the horticulture staff for more specific plant recommendations. For more information on inviting native pollinators into your yard, visit www.xerces.org.

Daniel Murphy is a horticulture technician at the Idaho Botanical Garden.

View full sizeSondra Freckleton’s Begonia with Quilt is part of an exhibit on garden-inspired art, now on view now at the Toledo Museum of Art. Toledo Museum of Art
GARDEN-THEMED EXHIBIT:  A new exhibition that focuses on how people interact with nature, landscape and garden design is now on view at the Toledo Museum of Art, and is sure to delight art and garden lovers.

Assembled entirely from the Museum’s own collection, “Paper Roses: Garden-Inspired Works on Paper” presents 100 prints, drawings and photographs by some of the most acclaimed European and American artists. The works date from the 17th to the 20th centuries.

The free exhibition continues through Sunday, May 18. “Paper Roses” is an exhibit that complements the Toledo Museum of Art’s major international exhibition “The Art of the Louvre’s Tuileries Garden.”

The Tuileries Garden, which stretches from the Louvre to the Place de la Concorde in central Paris, was created in 1564 for French royalty. Today it attracts 10 million visitors annually and is a key venue for art. “The Art of the Louvre’s Tuileries Garden” is now on view.

If you can’t see the exhibition in person, you can view the online catalog for “Paper Roses” at toledomuseum.org.

TAX TIPS: If you’re preparing your taxes and wondering if you can get a tax break for home improvement expenses, the answer is maybe. First, you must have kept track of all home improvement expenses. Some improvements, such as installing central air conditioning, may help reduce taxes when you sell your house, according to TurboTax.

Click on the IRS website for more information. Some home appliances that are Energy Star Rated may qualify you for a tax deduction. See a list of qualifying appliances here, suggests the Huffington Post.

GARDENING WORKSHOP: The Master Gardeners of Cuyahoga County, a part of Ohio State
University Extension, will present the “From Garden to Table” seminar  9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, April 26 at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park Happy Days Lodge,
500 W Streetsboro Road, Peninsula. The program fee is $36 ($42 after Wednesday, April 16)
and includes breakfast, lunch and handdouts. 

Presentation topics include pest management, growing strawberries, making wine, favorite tomato varieties and dmore.

A registration form is available
at the Master Gardeners of Cuyahoga County website.

Showers and thunderstorms will increase across Green Country into the overnight hours.