My kids and I have an early spring tradition to see who can spot the first robin. I don’t know much about these large red breasted heralds of spring but I do know that they eat worms. My son Phineas was first this year. He saw one at his school playground. The next day he came home and reported that not only did he see a robin, but he counted 27 robins near his playground! All sort of in a group. Do they migrate in flocks? I have no idea. But it did occur to me that the ground near his playground must be teeming with life.
Maybe the robins know the best spot for our gardens…
Now is the time to test our garden soil! It is the most important piece of the vegetable garden puzzle. Without healthy, nutritious soil our plants won’t leaf out and grow big and strong or produce the nice big vegetables we see at the farmer’s markets. And in fact without healthy soil our plants will be more susceptible to pests and diseases. Healthy soil is generally the answer to most of our vegetable gardening challenges.
Vegetables love organic matter. They need generous helping of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium as well as other minerals and nutrients. Fertilizers can provide this but our plants don’t do as well with blasts of nutrients from fertilizers. It’s better to give them real compost which is like a time release vitamin for your plants. They will get the doses they need over the time they need it.
You can make your own compost at home and you can buy organic compost at your garden nursery. Composted manure is excellent for vegetables, as is composted food waste and either or both of those combined with the “browns” of composted leaves and twigs and dead plants make a delicious mix to add to any garden at this time of year.
Testing your soil is a great start to the garden season. I use the UMass lab: http://www.umass.edu/soiltest/ On this website you’ll find links to instructions for sampling and how to send in your sample. There are different levels of tests. I usually choose the most basic, the Standard Soil Test for $10, which gives me information on pH, Extractable Nutrients, Extractable Heavy Metals, and the soil’s Cation Exchange Capacity (the measure of your soil’s ability to hold and release nutrients). For an additional $5 you can also learn about what percent of your soil is organic matter.
Worm poop (as my kids call it) is one of the best soil amendments around. So maybe watching where the robins feast is a good tip. Happy Spring.
p.s. do you remember the book The Secret Garden? It was the robin who showed Mary the way!
