My gardening style is no dig. I grow in the style of Charles Dowding and started the yard-garden by putting down cardboard and mushroom compost on top of the cardboard. The pathways between my beds are covered in woodchips. I also use a few totes and other gardening methods inspired by the Robbie and Gary Gardening Easy YouTube channel. This way of gardening has served me well for the two years of the yard-garden. Additionally I have a sloped area that I used as the vegetable garden many years ago and that has been home to fruit trees for over 18 years. I have blueberry bushes, a peach tree, an apple tree (the second one died many years ago) and several flowering bushes (camellias, azaleas, crape myrtle and ornamental pear.
Hopefully by this month the gardening bug is upon you, but we in the southeast must still be a little patient, especially if like me, your gardening style is direct seeding what you want to grow, and thus are waiting for last frost dates to come and go. For me last frost is typically April 12th thereabouts. Nonetheless, I am filled with excitement at the prospect of seeing things growing in plentiful supply this year and there are things one can be doing in happy anticipation. This is the time to take stock of what is going on in your garden.
I have certain failures I intend on conquering and certain vegetables that I cannot wait to have again (raw okras are an absolute favourite). As I look around my yard-garden I observe the many winter vegetables that are still alive in one fashion or another: some are left for me to pick like carrots and Chinese greens;, some need cleaning up like collards and kale; and others need to be taken out of the ground and totes completely (beets that never amounted to anything and Napa cabbages that have bolted. i have garlic in the ground that were planted in November and those are looking well. I have a lot of crops that can tolerate the cool weather so I will need to get them planted out soon. One thing about my weather, it goes from winter to summer fast, completely bypassing spring.
If you have not made an inventory of what you have and what you will need, go ahead and take a tour of your area. I have a lawn garden (which is to say I have placed my vegetable garden on 1/2 my back lawn) and it needs fortification against the rabbits I know are waiting to devour all of my hard work. So I will need to purchase more netting that I can use as barriers around all of my beds. I also need new packets of beet and chard seeds as the ones I have are old and did nothing for me last year. There are some weeds coming up under the wood chips as the cardboard has completely disappeared and the wood chips are disintegrating. The weeds are not overwhelming to pull by hand at this time so it is a good time to tackle those as well.
As exciting as it is to think about what you are going to be doing this year, do keep in mind however, that we are still very much in winter and surprises in the weather are to expected. I have started spring and summer crops indoors and they are thriving but I do not have the urge to take the summer ones out of doors as yet (peppers, tomatoes and eggplants) knowing that below freezing temps are still in the forecast. I have a friend who is a master gardener and she suggests never starting your summer garden before May.
