January Gardening Tips

   Hello friends, the new year has arrived and it's time to get that garden eady for spring.  The first thing I like to do each year is service all my equipment before I use it.  I usually service all my mowers, tiller, weedeater, leafblower, and chipper first.  I change oil and filter, clean or change the air filter, and sharpen the blades.  I also like to do a tune up which usually consists of changing the spark plug and draining the gas and putting in fresh gas.  Shovels, hoes, rakes, and other equipment should have ben cleaned and oiled before winter storage, but can be done now.  Hand tools should be sharpened with a hand file insead of a grinder for a better edge that will stay longer.  Cleaning is easily done by fixing a bucket of oily sand and thrusting the tool in and out of the sand to remove dirt and grime and rust.  Now you are ready to get busy.  First time starting should be a breeze and I like to let things run at an idle for a few minutes to loosen them up and make sure everything is runing smoothly.
  The tools that are most on my mind at this time of year are the shovel, hoe, rake, and tiller.  This is the time when I usually prepare any new beds by tilling them to a depth of eight to twelve inches deep and adding any amendments and then tilling again to mix them with the soil.  You can purchase soil amendments at your local garden center, but I'm a fan of collecting leaves and chopping them up with my mower and spreading them about six inches deep on my beds and tilling them in.  I am also a big fan of adding worm castings at this time to give the soil that added boost of nutrients.  Worm castings are a great way to add nitrogen to the soil naturally and it is considered to be a slow release type of fertilizer.  I do not recommend adding any fast release fertilizers to your beds at this time.  It would just be a waste of money in my opinion.  These beds that I am preparing at this time have already been sprayed with roundup last fall and had leaves piled on them since October.  These beds are also going to have roses planted in them.
  On the other hand, you can also prepare beds by doing a system that some call raised bed or lasagna gardening.  I am a big fan of this system also.  You can pick the spot for your beds and simply start to layer newspapers, leaves, mulch, pine straw, peat moss, and composted materials on top of one another.  I like to get this mixture at least six to twelve inches deep and let it set over winter and then plant in it.  This is an easy way to make beds and have rich loose soil for your plants.  I also like to add worm castings to this mixture as a slow release fertilizer.
  Therer are several different ways to prepae a new bed, but these are two of my favorites.  If you have questons or comments, send me an email or leave a comment.
  Happy Gardening and keep diggin' in the dirt.