GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. — We've all got a lot of time on our hands and the nicer weather means a lot of us want to get digging in the dirt. Here's what you can and should be doing in your lawn and garden right now.
- Clean and sharpen your garden tools like pruners, snippers and even your shovels and rakes.
- Remove winter protection from trees and shrubs.
- Prune trees and shrubs, including fruit trees. Avoid pruning spring bloomers like forsythia, pussy willows and rhododendrons until after the flower season. If you have shrubs that are overgrown and don't bloom anymore you can try cutting them down to 3" or 4" off the ground.
- Force spring-flowering shrubs indoors.
- Trim up your ornamental grasses. But leave the perennials for a bit yet. Pollinators and beneficial insects are over-wintering in your perennials and the leaves that have collected around them. Wait to clean up the perennials until you are mowing your lawn, as a good rule of thumb.
- Lightly rake the lawn to help air circulate to dry it out. Raking too hard will damage the crowns of the grass. And if your lawn is wet, stay off it all together. Also avoid any chemical fertilizers or herbicides, including crabgrass preventer. It's too soon for that!
- If your garden soil is dry enough to crumble in your hands, go ahead and plant early season crops right in the ground! Radishes, onions, peas, carrots, kholrabi, kale, lettuce and other root crops are great options that can be sowed directly into the soil.
- Warm season crop seeds like tomatoes and peppers can be started indoors.
Have fun and let us know what your up to! If you haven't yet, join our Grow with Kare Facebook group!
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