Spring Garden Rescue: Your Post-Soggy Winter To-Do List

Battling the Backlog: Getting Your Garden Ready After a Wet Winter

Many Australian gardeners are facing a daunting to-do list this March, thanks to a winter that seemed to deliver an endless deluge. The prolonged wet weather has left many gardens waterlogged and behind schedule. But with a bit of strategic planning and some clever techniques, it’s still possible to salvage the season and get your patch thriving.

Harnessing Sunshine and Speeding Up Drying

The key to catching up lies in getting the soil into workable condition. While we can’t control the weather, we can influence how quickly our gardens dry out. The hope is for spring sunshine and drying winds to work their magic in March and April. To give nature a helping hand and ensure that rainy days don’t undo your efforts, consider using cloches.

• Cloches for Controlled Drying: Placing cloches over the soil before sowing and planting offers a dual benefit. They act as mini-greenhouses, trapping warmth to help the soil heat up, while also physically excluding rain. This allows water to evaporate from the soil surface, rather than accumulating.

• The Difference with Plastic Sheeting: While laying clear plastic sheeting over the soil will trap warmth, it doesn’t facilitate evaporation. This method is effective for warming most soils, but it’s less ideal for heavy clay soils. Clay soils drain poorly and require surface evaporation to dry and warm properly, unlike lighter, better-drained soils.

Tackling Weeds Early and Efficiently

The increased warmth, even with cloches, will likely trigger an early flush of weed seedlings. This is actually a good thing, as it presents an opportunity to tackle them before they become a major problem.

• Shallow Hoeing is Your Friend: A shallow hoeing at this stage is incredibly effective. By removing these initial seedlings, you significantly reduce the number of weeds that will emerge later in the season. Weed seeds germinate in response to light, so clearing the surface ones means fewer subsequent seedlings will have the conditions they need to sprout.

Soil Preparation: Less Digging, More Working

For many, the instinct after a wet spell is to dig. However, deep digging is often unnecessary and time-consuming, unless your soil has become severely compacted from walking on it while wet.

• Addressing Compaction: If compaction is an issue, the best approach is to gently loosen it. Insert a garden fork into the soil and lever it back, without inverting the soil layers. This breaks up the compacted areas without disturbing the soil structure too much.

• Fertilising and Finishing: Once any compaction is addressed, add your fertiliser. Then, when the soil is dry enough, give it a shallow hoeing. This will kill any remaining weeds and leave the soil surface finely divided, creating an ideal seedbed for sowing and planting. If there’s no compaction, simply hoe and fertilise.

Alternative Weed Suppression: The Compost and Cardboard Method

If you have a good supply of compost, there’s an excellent, labour-saving method for suppressing weeds and enriching your soil simultaneously.

• Smothering Weeds: Lay down a layer of cardboard directly over the area you want to prepare. This will effectively block out light, preventing existing weeds from growing.
• Building the Bed: On top of the cardboard, add a generous layer of 75mm (about 3 inches) of compost.
• Planting In: You can then sow seeds or plant directly into this compost layer. The cardboard will naturally break down over time, especially in contact with the soil, and will improve soil structure as it decomposes.

Rotovators: A Tool to Consider Cautiously

For those who prefer mechanical cultivation, hiring a rotovator can be an effective option. However, it’s a tool that needs to be used with caution, particularly on certain soil types.

• The Risks of Rotovating Clay Soils: Unless your soil is light and sandy, rotovating can be detrimental. On sticky, clay soils, the blades tend to mash the soil into a paste, severely damaging its structure and making it even harder to work with.
• Timing is Crucial: While most soils should be dry enough for rotovating by mid-April, it’s important to remember that any cultivation at this time will inevitably lead to a loss of soil moisture. Be prepared for the possibility of needing to water more frequently.

Lawn Care in Damp Conditions

The mild weather might be tempting, but many lawns are still too wet to mow. The good news is that the abundance of fallen leaves is actually helping the situation.

• Leaves as Natural Dryers: The plentiful leaves are actively transpiring water, which helps to dry out the soil beneath. They also have the added benefit of suppressing moss and other unwanted ground cover.
• Mowing Tips for a Drier Lawn: When the time is right for mowing, a gradual approach is best for the grass. Avoid heavy mowing. Instead of collecting the clippings, consider omitting the grass box. The light fall of clippings will be absorbed by the sward, adding nutrients back into the lawn.
• Edge Trimming: Even when mowing the main lawn isn’t feasible, you can still keep the edges tidy. Lay down wooden planks to walk on, distributing your weight and preventing soil compaction while you trim.

Working on Soggy Ground: The Plank Method

The use of planks isn’t just for lawn edges. They can be invaluable when working in areas where the surface soil is dry but the ground beneath remains soggy.

• Planting and Sowing from Planks: Working from planks allows you to plant out onion sets or sow seeds of hardy crops like carrots, lettuce, and peas without compressing the soil or damaging its structure.
• When to Avoid the Plank: It’s still unwise to plant or sow directly into wet surface soil, even when using a plank for support. The goal is to work with the soil when it’s in the best possible condition.

The Greenhouse and Coldframe Advantage

This is where your greenhouse, coldframe, or even a sunny patio can really shine. These protected environments offer a solution for getting a head start on your planting, even when the garden soil is still too wet.

• Starting Seeds Indoors: Sow seeds and sets in cell trays or small pots. This allows them to germinate and grow into robust seedlings, ready for transplanting.
• Timing for Transplanting: Transplants started now will typically take about six weeks to reach a suitable size for planting out. This means they should be ready in May, when the soil is likely to be warmer, drier, and less hospitable to slugs. By May, your young plants will also be a little more resilient to any minor slug damage they might encounter.
• Root Crops: A Different Approach: Unfortunately, root crops like carrots and parsnips don’t transplant well. These will have to wait for April sowing directly into the ground, when they will still grow into perfectly acceptable crops.