How to Get Your Garden Ready for Spring: 10 Essential Spring Gardening Jobs

There is so much excitement around springtime! For most gardeners, spring is their favourite time to be out in the garden, watching it transform from dormant green and brown into a kaleidoscope of colour and activity.

Before spring hits, however, there are many jobs to be done to prepare your garden for the busy growing period ahead. Here is our garden checklist of ten essential spring gardening jobs to get your garden sorted for the season.

How to Get Your Garden Ready for Spring: Our 10 Recommendations:

1. Check Over Your Garden, Plan Your Garden, and Set Up Irrigation

Start by inspecting your garden and repairing any broken, damaged, or dysfunctional items. Then plot out your plantings. Our garden planner tool (which you can try for free) can help you estimate the number of plants needed to fill a particular space.

Now is also a great time to plan any irrigation you wish to add to your garden beds, so as not to disturb or damage young plants once planted.

2. Order Your Propagation and Seed Supplies

Once you know what you want to plant, order any necessary supplies and seeds to get your garden started. Check out the list at the bottom of this article of varieties perfect for sowing in spring. Be sure to check our new seed products page in spring too for the latest, ideal varieties to grow in the season.

3. Start Sowing Indoors

September, although technically spring, may not have suitable temperatures for sowing seeds in the garden. Ideally, you need to wait until the soil temperature is more consistent and any risk of frost has passed.

You can get a jump start on spring sowing by starting seeds indoors using a coco fibre self-watering greenhouse kit and heatpad. Coco fibre pellets and pots allow you to plant out your seedlings without the risk of transplant shock, as you plant the pot into the ground with the seedling. Explore our coco fibre propagation products and propagation accessories, part of our extensive range of garden equipment.

4. Sharpen Your Tools

Ensure your gardening tools are up to the task ahead by ensuring they are sharp and well-oiled before heading to the garden. For further advice, please refer to our guide on how to care for garden tools.

5. Test Soil

Soil should contain all the nutrients your plants need to thrive, but in reality, differences in pH, soil type, and previous use of the soil cause deficiencies, so you may need to add nutrients to your soil to balance it. Start by testing your soil pH so that you know where to start. You can learn more in our article on how to choose the right fertiliser.

6. Turn Compost, Use in Garden if Ready

If you composted all those autumn leaves and food scraps earlier in the year, you should now have some beautiful, rich compost to add to the garden in spring. This is a really useful step when looking for ways on how to prepare your garden beds for spring.

Your compost is complete once you can no longer distinguish individual materials, and it has an earthy, pleasant smell. You can add your new compost around existing plantings in a fine layer, or mix it into your empty garden beds to add organic matter to your soil. For further guidance, refer to our guide on starting a compost heap.

7. Dig in Green Manure Crops and Add Organic Matter

If you took advantage of growing a green manure crop during the cooler season, now is the time to dig it into the top layer of soil. Ideally, you should dig in your green manure crop 2-4 weeks before planting out, so make this a priority early in the season to ensure your bed is ready when your seedlings are ready to be planted out. 

You can find out much more about green manure crops by reading our complete guide on them.

8. Remove Weeds and Apply Mulch

A key action when preparing your garden beds for spring is to remove any weeds that have grown in the bare soil over the cooler months. Just be aware that weeds also have seeds, and if left to flower, you may now have dormant weed seeds in your soil as well; we call this your soil’s ‘seed bank’.

Unfortunately, come springtime, when you start giving your soil more attention, this awakens the seed bank, and you may end up growing more weeds, so mulching your garden beds is a good idea. This will shade out many weeds and also help keep your soil moist and at a stable temperature throughout the warmer months. 

You can learn more about how to tackle garden weeds and combat your soil’s seed bank by reading our handy guide.

9. Pruning, Hedging, and Edging

Most pruning happens just after fruiting and flowering, or during dormancy in the cooler months, so there shouldn’t be much to do at the beginning of spring. Be sure to prune before buds appear, as doing so may risk damaging new growth or removing blooms. For more tips, read our guide on how to prune.

Spring, however, is the ideal time to get the hedges and edges in order. Hedging sparks new growth and is vital for ensuring that enough light can penetrate your hedge to produce lovely, complete, bushy plants. Nice, sharp edges add a whole new level of order to a garden and help prevent grass from creeping into garden beds. Our hedging and edging guide contains much more advice.

10. Plant Out Seeds, Seedlings, and Summer Bulbs

Once the garden is in order, it is time to start planting out!

What to Plant in Spring?

Vegetable Varieties to Start Early Indoors:

You can start vegetable seeds, such as capsicum, tomatoes, chilli, and cucumber, indoors in the springtime. Plant these out in the garden when the risk of frost has passed and when the soil is consistently warm at around 20°C.

Vegetable Varieties to Sow Outdoors in Spring:

Once the risk of frost has passed and the soil is consistently warm at around 20°C, it’s time to sow the following outdoors:

• Sweet Corn
• Cucumber
• Carrots
• Beans
• Beetroot
• Capsicum
• Eggplant
• Leek
• Silverbeet
• Lettuce
• Pumpkin
• Zucchini

Herbs to Sow in Spring

It’s also the ideal time of the year to sow herb seeds, and all of your favourites thrive at this time of year. Most will allow first pickings in as little as 6-8 weeks and then provide an abundance throughout the summer and following autumn.

Flower Seeds to Grow in Spring

There is a vast range of flower seeds perfect for sowing in spring. Some of our favourites are sunflowers, petunias, zinnias, dahlias and marigolds.

Bulbs to Grow in Spring

Some summer-produce bulbs and flower bulbs can also still be planted at this time of year. Flowering bulbs, such as oriental lilies, dahlias, hippeastrum, and calla lilies, are suitable for growing in September and October, as they will flower in the summer.

Some produce bulbs, such as potatoes, asparagus, berry canes and crowns, shallots, and rhubarb, may also be planted this time of year for harvests in the summer and autumn months.

Shop Spring Gardening Essentials at Mr Fothergill’s

So, as you can see, there are many things to do in the garden during spring. We hope this checklist of spring gardening jobs and all our spring gardening tips help you to get your growing space fully prepared!

For a comprehensive list of vegetables to plant in spring, our online spring vegetable seeds collection offers a range of high-quality options to choose from.

For a list of flower seed varieties to plant in spring, our collection of seeds to sow in spring contains many fantastic varieties that you’re sure to love.