Southwest Garden

Spring Green: Cultivating Good Garden Sense
By Christie Green

Spring and early summer are wondrous times of the year in the garden to witness the awakening of life and to encourage its continued evolution. By now, the ground is thawing, buds are swollen, perennial roots are pushing eager greens up above ground, and your Felcos are burning a hole in your pocket, aching to get back at it outside. Everything is ready for growth, movement, and the regeneration of life. Your stewardship is essential. Here are a few ideas on how to activate your garden - and yourself - for a healthy spring into the growing season.

Rather than simply maintaining your garden or landscape by keeping it in relatively good shape, blooming along obediently without bothersome pests or diseases, try embellishing your maintenance routine by restoring and fortifying your garden. Create a system that is continually improving upon itself rather than simply sustaining what is. A garden or landscape is a perfect example of a living system that requires much more than maintaining what exists. To grow, to evolve, and to enliven, a garden must thrive, with all components humming along hand-in-hand. You and the resources you generate are the primary factors in your garden's health.

Water
By now your cistern and other water collection devices are near capacity from winter's snow and rain fall. The wonderful, nitrogen-rich liquid is perfect to use for spring watering prior to activating your automated irrigation system, since emergent plants are hungry for nitrogen to feed their new green leaves. Water in the mornings or evenings when temperatures are cooler and there is little wind. Most established plantings will need water only once a week this time of year, and allow two deep waterings per week for other plantings. Remember to water out to the drip line of plants and beyond to encourage healthy uptake of moisture by the root system.

Reactivate your grey-water system as a primary source of moisture for your plantings. This is definitely an underutilized source of moisture for our landscapes. The City of Santa Fe provides a user-friendly how-to book on grey-water systems and regulations that may help guide you in deciding the best system for your household.

Soil
Rather than applying a fertilizer directly around the base of your plants like a quickie vitamin fix, feed your soil. It is the balanced meal upon which your plants feast year- round. Scoop up all of the finished compost you've managed to create from your kitchen scraps and yard waste - even a handful works as a powerful inoculant to our tired, alkaline soils. Apply at least an inch of homemade compost around all plantings, scratching the microbial-rich gold into the soil surface. You may also incorporate a balanced NPK meal into your compost before applying to the soil, further enabling the plants' uptake of nutrients.

Apply a generous two-to-three inch layer of mulch on all planted areas - and those you plan to plant in the future. Shredded bark, straw, pecan shells and fallen leaves gathered saved from the fall provide carbon, protection against desiccating winds, mass to absorb and retain precious moisture, and a cooling effect amongst hard surfaces surrounding planting beds. For those of you with sources of extraneous wood and a wood chipper, you can create and accumulate piles of mulch for future use.

Yum Yum mix or Soil Secrets products (Earth Magic and Protein Crumblies) are great, locally made soil foods available at local nurseries.

Weeds
Imagine weeds as your ally rather than your enemy, even as they seem to grow exponentially overnight. They are wonderful informants of your soil's heath and are performing the Band-Aid function of covering and protecting disturbed, scraped or low-nutrient soil. Their roots, especially the deep roots of perennial species, tap the nutrients and minerals trapped deep beneath the soil's surface, bringing the wealth from below to hungry plant roots above. Weeds' roots also hold soil in place, preventing erosion and creating a wonderful pathway for moisture to travel into the soil rather than running off a compacted, barren surface. Determine the type of weed you have before deciding to yank away. Most annuals are fine to cut off at the ground and leave in place. Compost the green above as a nitrogen source for future us or feed to your hens who will happily convert that green energy into your protein-rich breakfast. Perennial species may also be cut back mechanically or manually, though repetition is often necessary to weaken and eventually kill the root system. Leaving the roots in place is beneficial for their provision of biomass and carbon to the soil. Each root system also forms a microbial and fungal relationship with the soil and neighboring plant material, increasing the diversity of nutrients available and improving soil texture.

Plants
If you could not access your perennials' leaves and stems beneath winter's snow, cut them back now as they are exposed and ready to make way for new growth. Transplant any perennials, shrubs, and trees that didn't get moved in the fall, and remember to dig beyond the dripline of the plant, deep down beneath the root ball in order to thoroughly and gently extract the complete root system. Do not pry or force the plant to follow your shovel's will. The task may take longer and be more labor-intensive, but your transplanting will ultimately be more successful if all the roots are intact. Superthrive is a vitamin-rich supplement to include when watering in your plants to prevent transplant shock; a teaspoon goes a long way. Planting and transplanting are best completed before mid-May, when plants have a chance to settle in before the onset of summer's heat.

Sharpen your heavier pruners (Felco #13 is my favorite) to cut back woody shrubs like Russian sage and butterfly bushes by a third, which encourages a bushier, less leggy growth habit and more robust blooming. Cut back ornamental grasses to a tidy, uniform mound, allowing new spring growth to burst through the stubble of last year's blades. Try to resist the urge to toss your cuttings and garden debris. It is your best and cheapest resource - for enriching your garden system. Retain all "waste" products (except diseased parts) to include in your compost pile, or simply cut them up with your hand pruners and toss them along the soil surface amongst plantings. The micro and macro organisms in the soil will make short work of nitrogen- and carbon-rich debris cast aside.

To get the pantry stocked up again, get your backyard bounty booming by planting edibles like potatoes, kale, chard, lettuce, peas and carrots. Use permeable row covers to protect tender, young seedlings from hot midday sun, high spring winds and flying insect pests. Tend to those cold-sensitive tomato, pepper and squash seedlings in your greenhouse or window sill until the danger of frost has passed, at which point they may be planted in the veggie beds or amongst ornamental plantings. Try using materials you have on-hand such as those little cardboard Java Jackets to place around puny transplants. This is wonderful protection against spring winds and crawling insects. You may also use the actual to-go cups with their bottoms cut out for a taller, more substantial barrier against the elements while your seedlings' roots take hold. Once the plants have outgrown their shelter, cut up the paper to include as a source of carbon in your compost pile. Simplify the stream of products purchased and discarded to support your living system; the extra effort will soon become an exciting challenge.

Enjoy your outdoor home with all of your senses: smell and touch the soil to feel its health; observe the pattern of water flow amongst the plantings and hardscape; harvest the wealth of food and medicine abounding outside while contributing to its vibrant health with all of the resources you generate. Create a living system landscape within your home that inspires and informs - enjoy!

Christie Green is the proprietress of Down to Earth, LLC, visit her website at www.getdowntoearthlandscapes.com, or call 505-983-5743