Should we do an early spring cleanup in February

Why not do an early spring cleanup since the weather is mild

[whine] But It’s not quite time for spring cleanup!! [end whine]  February is not usually a time to do a lot of out door gardening. Usually, at least here in Zone 6b of Northern NJ, the ground is still frozen,  and most often there’s still snow. So, maybe the groundhog was wrong, or maybe climate change is affecting the seasons, or maybe a butterfly farted in the Galapagos during full moon.  Whatever the case may be, the weather is pretty mild this year, and venturing outside is giving us pangs of anxiety. The yard looks like a dystopia. Leaf litter, weeds of all sizes and whatever specs of trash the wind blew into all the corners. So the question is do a spring clean up now – or wait and do it at the usual time.

Here is our typical spring cleanup list

• Clear out all the leaf litter from the garden beds
• Prune and cut back all the things
• Clear and turn over the the annual and vegetable beds
• Add soil amendments and fertilizers
• De-thatch, lime and aerate the lawn
• Spray vinegar or boiling salt water around the edges of the patios and walks to control weeds
• Mulch all the perennial beds

It’s not a lot (well it is a lot but it’s not much work) , and like most properties in NJ, it doesn’t take dozens of hands or heavy machinery. Even still, many people will leave this to professional landscapers.  Not everyone has time, or ability and, well that’s okay, we don’t judge. Anyway, for us, spring usually spans about three weekends starting in late March or early April. We want to be done by the first week of May because that’s the last frost date and we can really get our gardens going.  If you’re not sure of your last frost date Dave’s garden has a neat frost date lookup page

But wouldn’t be so great to get spring cleanup out of the way

Sure it would, but there are a lot of things to consider. First, the weather is pretty unstable, swinging from freezing to balmy in a matter of days. The leaf litter is providing needed cover for wildlife. Also, the litter is keeping some of the weeds from sprouting.  Using natural management techniques for insects, animals and weeds is a lot easier than chemicals.  So, okay, we’ll wait on clearing the beds. Since the beds aren’t cleaned out, we’ll leave the soil as is for now.

Most of our plants are hearty enough to handle an early pruning and for those that aren’t we really only cut the dead or damaged parts anyway, so, pruning might still happen.

The lawn on the other hand… The lawn would love some attention. This year, we’ll spread over some lime to break down the fall leaves we mulched in and then in a couple weeks aerate and overseed.

We don’t have to worry about  the weeds so much right now, they’re providing food for the early spring wildlife and we can get to them in good time.

As for mulch, it doesn’t take much and well, we’ll wait until it goes on sale for the whole “spring black Friday” craze.

So maybe we can get a jump on spring cleanup

Regardless of your strategy a quick plan is all it takes to be mindful of getting things done and maintaining of beneficial environment. There’s still so much to do inside, our tomatoes are bearing fruit, we’re tending early vegetable seedlings and soon we’ll be starting even more. Not to mention household projects and the regular 9-5 (which never seems to start that late or end that early).  So maybe, just maybe, if we get a couple hours in now, we’ll be able to cruise through spring.