Four Ways to Feed Your Garden

Whenever you visit a beautiful garden, a conversation with the owners will always reveal one thing: they feed it a lot!

Most gardeners feed their gardens in the spring. Well-nourished plants can better withstand seasonal extremes and will bounce back much more quickly.

This is the ideal time of year to adopt an organic fertilization regime, enriching the soil with products such as animal manure (especially cow and poultry) and blood and bone. As the old gardening adage says: “Feed the soil and the soil will feed the plants.”

Flowerbeds, shrubs and hedges

If you have a larger garden, throw a bag of manure into a wheelbarrow and make a complete circuit of your beds, spreading it as you go. Apply generously as mulch, then spread lightly with a fork to help incorporate it into the soil below. If you can, do it after rain, when the soil is damp, and always water well when the work is finished.