Preparing garden beds for early planting

SALT LAKE CITY — Spring is coming very soon, so Taun and Maria went over preparing your garden beds for early planting on the latest KSL Greenhouse show.

One thing you have to watch out for is the weather. Taun says the soonest you can really get out is mid-March when the snow is melting off.

The first thing you’re going to monitor are the soil temperatures.

“If you have raised beds with a lot of compost or artificial soil, those will heat up more quickly than your garden soil because they’re less dense and take a shorter amount of time to start absorbing the sun’s heat,” Taun said.

Another trick is to either cover the soil with clear plastic sheeting or put the low tunnels over the top of the raised bed a couple of weeks ahead of time and let it heat up the soil. You can use a kitchen thermometer to measure the soil temperature.

What else can we start doing?

Taun says you can start planting some of the cool crops like radishes and lettuce as long as the snow is off the ground and you have low tunnels.

“We’ve been 10 degrees below the average for the last couple of weeks, so if it stays like this, it may be until late-March or early-April before we really start to be able to get out there. That’s why you need to watch the weather,” Taun said.

It’s important to keep in mind that mid-March isn’t always the best time to start preparing garden beds.

Listen to the full segment on our podcast below!

The KSL Greenhouse is on every Saturday from 8-11 a.m. You can follow the show on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.