Spring gardening tips

Vegetables

I always encourage gardeners to review advised planting dates for their region of Missouri for vegetables they'll grow. In Central Missouri, most cool season vegetables are advised to plant around the last week of March. But that depends on the year and its weather. For the drought year (2012), spring was three weeks early, so that year one could have planted at the beginning of the month. For 2016, spring was delayed with some cold weather, but it was sunny and dry, so cool season vegetables did well. Cool season vegetables will tolerate cold, wet weather if planted early and we don't get freezing weather to harm transplants (e.g. broccoli) or sets (e.g. onion bunches).

Is there a downside risk?

Some of the crops like broccoli may have their chilling requirement met and pop a tiny head, often referred to as buttoning, which can also be caused by planting stressed transplants. Onions may flower instead of making bulbs, and seeds may not emerge well if they lay there and the soil crusts over first. Potatoes may rot if the soil stays too wet.

What to do with our typically erratic spring weather?

Raised beds will help the soil warm up quicker and not stay too saturated. Use new seeds when possible; they will emerge better under challenging conditions. If practical, wait to plant potatoes until mid-April if the weather looks to stay cool and wet. Plant broccoli and cauliflower or more than one variety of each; sensitivity to chilling requirements vary and often only one crop or variety is affected. The same holds true for onions. A lifelong Missouri Horticulture professor once said, "It's sometimes better to wait to plant cool season vegetables until our spring finally warms up. Then when you plant everything really takes off."

Asparagus is one of the earliest vegetables you can harvest. Remove old fronds and rake back leaves and other matter so you have clean bare soil. The ground will warm up quicker so you'll get earlier growth and it will facilitate harvest. Asparagus is frost sensitive, so if frost is predicted harvest any spears above ground; the ones at or below ground should be fine.

Fruits

Dormant fruit sprays can generally be made in early March. There may still be time. A common peach disease I receive that comes on in June and July is peach leaf curl. The home gardener is invariably disappointed when told it can only be prevented with a spray while dormant. Use chlorothalonil, Bordeaux mixture or a copper product. Look into the other spraying often required to prevent common fruit and leaf diseases of stone fruit and apples and be prepared.

Strawberries will need to be uncovered, typically toward mid- to late March. Keep your mulch material handy in case a cold snap comes and you need to put it back on for a couple of nights. Winter-protected figs should be unwrapped about this same time. If they leaf out and it is forecasted to go below the mid-20s, consider covering with a tarp.

Most fruit crops should be pruned by mid-March. Some, like grapes, can often wait until the end of the month. Once buds swell you really want to get to it. If flowers open, or they leaf out, it is still better to prune than to skip it. The plant will still benefit.