Spring fever is real | Practices to consider for a vibrant resilient garden
Spring has arrived in the desert and with it spring fever. People, including myself, are itching to get outside and plant. Many do, often in a frenetic rush, which inevitably is premature. Albuquerque spring usually comes and goes in a blink yet is completely predictable – warm waves followed by frigid nights and wet storms. It’s an intense period of highs and lows, deranging winds only to be followed shortly thereafter by the relentless heat of summer.
This season I’m taking a different approach to the garden. Though the sun is quickly moving north, I hear the return of certain birdsong, and the bulbs are breaking the surface, I’m consciously slowing down.
How? I’m embracing a few things. First, that a garden is never ‘finished’ and therefore slowing down is no big deal. I know that it’s a project I will be working on as long as I’m living in this house. Secondly, I plan on planting more perennials. These are plants unlike annual flowers and vegetables that do not need to be reseeded every year. Once established in this micro climate they will return year after year, widening their reach and deepening their roots.
In order to slow down I’m literally doing less. I’m not rushing to plant by a certain date nor feeling the need to follow my ridiculously robust planting schedule I’ve developed in a google worksheet. I’m softening my approach and mindset. Instead I’m being guided by the moon cycles*, the weather systems, my intuition, and my years of experience. I’m listening for when the time is right, for the garden will be perfect no matter what I do.
The end goal remains the same: to support life and beauty.
The result is a landscape which changes every year and transforms the space in which my family and I live and work. I’ll be the first to say that I love weeding, seeding trays of flowers, or simply taking a short stroll through the yard with my morning coffee.
I consider the garden one of the most magical and dynamic rooms in my home. One in which to dine, rest, and contemplate. So on that note, here are all the practices plus a moon phase planting PDF.
Practices for a vibrant resilient garden
Mulch and then mulch some more.
In one season I’m always amazed how quickly the mulch I brought in the year before has decomposed. Clearly compost in action. Because of this, every year or two I haul in more mulch to cover the pathways and spread around the perennials, trees, and shrubs. I’m mimicking the forest cycles by way of protecting the soil, building organic matter, and reducing evaporation. It’s a simple process aside and significantly impactful, yet does require some serious schlepping.
Begin to slowly transition to a perennial dominated garden.
Annuals mean those plants that are seeded, grown, and harvested in one growing season. Vegetables and some tender flowers are good examples of this. Perennials on the other hand are those that may go dormant in the colder winter season but return again year over year. Many can eventually be divided and transplanted as they mature.
I will always grow flowers and vegetables because they feed my artistic endeavors of arranging and cooking. However this year I’m going to experiment intermixing them with perennial plants with similar watering needs.
Be even more mindful of how I consume water.
Water is by far our most precious resource. There’s nothing that made this more apparent than living in the desert. The majority of my garden is on drip irrigation, but this year I’m planning to migrate everything over. And even upgrade some of the water catchment systems that I have in place.
The weather is changing. In the twenty years I’ve lived here, the temperatures have only seemed to climb. And that coupled with shorter and lighter summer monsoons, water is at the forefront of my mind. Naturally, it’s forcing my systems to evolve.
Clean and organize and make a plan based on the above processes.
I’m a seed saver and collector. I save seeds every year from the plants that I grow. Wherever I travel, be it visiting friends in California, Portugal, Oregon, seeds are exchanged. It’s powerful. To me it’s sharing life, history, time, medicine, food, love. Needless to say, I have a lot of seeds. This year was the first year in a long time that I pulled all of them out and took inventory.
Some I knew needed to be composted, others clearly labeled and repackaged. The biggest thing I did was sort them based on the following categories. I can geek out on this. You don’t need to do any of this but I will say when planting time comes, it’s nice to be organized.
I have two different seed boxes. Both of which I have sections labeled with the bullets below. One for all my flowers and one for all my herbs and vegetables. Another factor which informs this, which will be different depending on where in the world you live, I note my growing zone. I’m in zone 7, the high desert in a city which ranges between 5,000-6,000 ft and our last frost date is around April 17th but May has been known to be very cold and erratic, just saying.
Start indoors
8 weeks before last first (BLF)
6 weeks BLF
3 weeks BLF
Sow directly
3 weeks BLF
Into spring and summer
Summer planting
Fall planting
Over winter - needs stratification
Happy spring!