The May long weekend is known as the planting weekend in the Prince George area. Many local gardeners will be out in the yard getting the garden ready to seed and plant. It is always important to get the soil ready before you do any planting. This would mean having the garden tilled or hand spaded. Before tilling the soil you may want to add manure, compost, fertilizer, or what we use, a locally made blood/bone soil amendment, to the soil so that it gets mixed in with the soil as you till it. If there were any problems with the soil or the garden last year, it is a good idea to do a simple soil test, (available at the garden centre) to see what might be lacking and then you can amend the soil to the recommendations.

When the soil is ready it is time to start planting. Plan the garden before you begin putting seeds and plants in the soil. Crop rotation is important as it is a preventive measure in stronger, healthier plants. Crop rotation helps with pest control, plant disease, and aids in keeping a more nutrition balanced soil. Certain crops attract only certain pests, such as the carrot rust fly will go after only carrots. If you had a problem with carrot rust fly last year, it will be back again this year. By moving the carrots to another part of the garden, it will lessen the chances of it coming back. Then again, some vegetable groups take or add different nutrients to the soil then other plant groups, For example, beans, and peas (legumes0 fix nitrogen into the soil and so where these were planted last year, you could plant brassicas (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, etc) there this year as they enjoy a soil higher in nitrogen.

Now, that you have the garden planned, take out the seeds, and transplants. I have found over the years that there are more vegetable plants available as bedding plants (transplants) then there used to be. Where years ago most gardeners would directly seed many vegetable seeds into the garden soil, they are opting to transplant young plants instead. The benefits to using transplants is that you get a head start on the garden by a few weeks, as you don’t have to wait for the seeds to germinate and grow. This can be a good thing, especially here in Prince George where our gardening season can be quite short. In the garden at home we still sow carrots, parsnips, beets, turnips, spinach and some lettuce (for a later season crop) seeds along with potatoes directly into the soil. All the rest we start the seeds in the greenhouse and then transplant the young seedling out around the end of May, depending on the weather and how frost tolerant the vegetable is. The first plants to go in the garden are the onions and leeks. Next would be all the brassicas as they are a cool weather crop. However, over the past few years we have had a problem with root maggots in the brassicas and so we have been growing the brassicas in 6-8 inch pots and letting them get quite large before transplanting them in the garden a little later in the season. By planting them in the garden later, the plants root systems are much larger and able to withstand more and it seems that by waiting towards the end of May/beginning of June, you miss when the fly lays it eggs on the soil. Salad crops and celery can also be planted in the garden along with the peas transplants as they can handle cool temperatures. The last plants that go into the garden are the heat loving plants that do not take any frost. These include cucumbers, squash, corn, tomatoes, peppers, beans etc. We always have a frost protection blanket near by just in case the temperatures go near or below freezing.

I have been watching the weather forecasts and the predictions are for some cooler temperatures at the beginning of next week and the full moon is May 23^rd so I would still be cautious before planting out any frost tender plants if you live outside the bowl area!