With all the wonderful rain we’ve received in recent weeks, I am eagerly planning my spring garden and dreaming about tall spikes of foxgloves, delphiniums and Shasta daisies.\u00a0 Now is a great time to clean garden beds and prepare your soil for planting.\u00a0 Each year I take out my rusty red wheel barrel and fill it with organic products, such as; blood meal, bone meal, earthworm castings and kelp meal and work it into the soil, all with the help of my trusty gardeners.\u00a0 Earthworm castings are one of my favorite natural fertilizers since it helps stimulate plant growth, increases your plant\u2019s ability to retain water and makes them strong and healthy, so that they can ward off insect infestations, diseases, and fungal infections. \u00a0The castings are filled with natural nitrates, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium and calcium, as well as a multitude of other minerals, and since they are naturally occurring elements, they will not burn your plants. When you purchase a bag of earthworm castings, the castings may also include earthworm eggs that will later hatch in your soil and add more worms to your garden, which will, in turn, add more castings to your soil and also aerate it.\u00a0 If you feel your garden is lacking from earthwork activity, there are many local sources that you can find online that sell earthworms to add to your garden soil. \u00a0Blood and bone meal or any organic animal product fertilizers can burn plants, so read the packages and add the appropriate amounts for the size of your garden beds.\u00a0 Any organic ingredients you add to your soil will feed the earthworms that are already working there.\u00a0 By the middle to the end of February, it is time to feed your roses.\u00a0 For each rose, I use a cup of Aida Perry Mix that I purchase at Walter Anderson’s Nursery and mix it with 2 cups of earthworm castings.\u00a0 The following month, I add about a half cup of Epsom salt around the base of each rose and work it into the soil.
\n\u00a0Another experiment I am working on is my meadow lawn.\u00a0 I only have two small strips of grass at the entrance to my garden gate and with the recent water restrictions, the grass looked terrible.\u00a0 Last year I purchased a bag of micro clover seeds and planted it over the grass.\u00a0 Sometimes, passersby ask me when I plan to take out the clover and I think they feel I am kidding when I tell them that I planted the clover on purpose.\u00a0 \u00a0Clover has naturally occurring nitrogen in it and is resilient to dog urine.\u00a0 It requires less water than grass, stays a beautiful shade of green year-round and produces tiny white flowers.\u00a0 In the next few weeks, we are going to remove as much grass as possible and plant all micro clover.\u00a0 \u00a0
\n\u00a0Linda is a Realtor with Coldwell Banker, La Jolla.\u00a0 Her historic garden has been published in local and national magazines.\u00a0 Take a tour of Linda’s garden at www.LindaMarrone.com.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With all the wonderful rain we’ve received in recent weeks, I am eagerly planning my spring garden and dreaming about tall spikes of foxgloves, delphiniums and Shasta daisies.\u00a0 Now is a great time to clean garden beds and prepare your soil for planting.\u00a0 Each year I take out my rusty red wheel barrel and fill […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":275571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"From my garden: Getting your garden ready for spring","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11560],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-la-jolla-village-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}