It’s spring and your garden is about to wake up and burst into life! Trees are budding, spring bulbs are beginning to flower, birds are nesting and bees are reappearing.

JOBS TO TACKLE NOW 

1. Prepare containers and beds

Clear out the last of your spent winter annuals and prepare to replant by covering the top layer of soil with well-rotted compost or manure (in the case of vegetables). Remember to include a few handfuls of bone meal, which can be gently mixed into the top 5 cm of the soil with the compost to provide nutrition for root growth.

2. Decide on mulch for when the days start getting hotter

Contact your nearest stables for used straw they usually throw away – it’s a great mulch material and provides some plant nutrition in the form of ammonia from the horses’ waste.

3. Turn your compost heap

Your compost heap or composter has been sitting all winter in the cold and wet, resulting in a reduction in microbial activity. If you have not started making your own compost, why not start one? Spring is the ideal season, because air temperatures are climbing, making it possible for bacteria to begin breaking down organic matter.

Tip: Buy a sachet of organic compost booster from your garden shop and sprinkle it over your compost mound to give it a charge of energy.