Planning Your Spring Garden

With spring only a few weeks away I am excited about getting the first seeds and starts planted. Thoughts of tasty heirloom tomatoes, garden fresh spring greens, cucumbers, basil, a wide assortment of sweet and spicy peppers, and a colorful array of flowers will keep your spirits high through the challenges of spring. Designing new and sustainable, low maintenance garden features will help make your yard come to life. Adding on to my edible garden with new fruit varieties, vegetable starts bought from local sources, planting herbs to use in our kitchen, and seeing the perennial flowers come back year after year are some of the pleasures of spring for me.
When it comes to flowers, there are gorgeous varieties that are suited for all types of tough conditions such as cold winters, drought, very hot temperatures, and poor soils.

Having pollinator friendly varieties planted to attract the butterflies, bees, and birds will help your garden grow healthy. Yarrow, salvia, agastache, lavender, penstemon, echinacea, and helianthus are some beautiful varieties that will fill your garden with a profusion of colors and fragrances. Transforming your lawn into an eye catching colorful carpet can save you water and many hours of maintenance. Thymus “pink chintz” is a very low grower that can handle dry conditions and is very attractive with its early spring blooms. Veronica Turkish Speedwell is also a low growing groundcover that blooms later in the spring. These attractive spreading plant types will form a mini meadow and can be accented around the edges with some lofty native plants in the ground or in tall colorful ceramic planters. A “hardscape” of large rocks, a bench with a shade arbor above it, or possibly a dry creek bed made of small rounded river run rock can also make an attractive point of interest. Check out one of my favorite sites, highcountrygardens.com for these inspiring and sustainable water wise garden plants and many more.


When looking for a new garden spot in your yard, consider the full sun or partial shade conditions that the area will get, how many hours of direct sunlight will be on which part of the garden, and if fences, buildings, or trees will shade the area. A maximum of 8 hours of sunlight is perfect for most plants. Morning sun or partial shade works well for lettuces and most flowers. Tomatoes, peppers, basil, and corn need full sun. Peas can grow on a fence or trellis with southern exposure. Most plant nurseries buy from suppliers that state the plants’ soil and sun needs on their identification stake. You can also look online for a garden plant hardiness zone guide.
If you want your gardens to flower all spring and summer, I recommend that you keep going to your local garden nursery throughout the six month growing season and choose from recent arrivals that are just starting to bloom.
In your vegetable garden and for your fruit trees, March and April are good months to amend your soil with as much organic matter as possible. If you have a compost pile, use the this to top dress your veggie beds or rows with three or four inches of compost or well-rotted manure that you will then dig in 3-4 inches to stimulate the beneficial microbes already alive in the soil. I have had good luck starting beans, peas, snow peas, eggplant, spinach, chard, cabbage, and other hardy vegetables from starts or seed early in the spring. Between now and the end of March tomatoes, peppers, and lettuces can be planted in a greenhouse, a small hot frame, under GCI row cover which is a lightweight cover that shields the plants from frost,cold, wind, and insects.
There is a huge selection of drought tolerant flowers to choose from at highcountrygardens.com.
For simply gorgeous and exotic flowering plants, you’ll be smart to visit Annie’s Annuals and Perennials at anniesannuals.com.
The amazing Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds company has the most complete and beautifully photographed seed catalog found anywhere. Visit rareseeds.com for a real treat.



Veggie Herb Saute
Total prep time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
¼ pound fresh green beans
¾ cup fresh sugar snap peas
1 tablespoon fresh olive oil
¾ cup julienned zucchini
¾ cup julienned summer squash
¾ teaspoon each: minced fresh rosemary, sage, basil, thyme
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons of crumbled blue cheese
Directions
 In a small skillet over medium heat cook beans and peas in oil
 Add zucchini, squash, herbs, and pepper flakes
 Cook and stir 3-5 minutes until the veggies are crisp and tender
 Sprinkle with cheese before serving

Our Experience Leads To Your Success

For 26 years, DripWorks has been the right partner for gardeners of all types because of our focus, experience, and passion. Always supplying the highest quality drip irrigation supplies and great technical support, the mutual loyalty between us and our customers is what makes our business great.
Support is often necessary to set up an efficient drip irrigation system that will save water while ensuring that the garden grows to its fullest. Dripworks.com and our annual catalog are very carefully laid out to address every gardener’s needs and make buying the right products as easy as possible.

                                      

Founded in 1991 in the basement of one of the three original owner’s home, and now with two distribution points from commercial settings in northern California, DripWorks has had a few mottos that we have stood by. First there was “We make it Simple” and “Your Best Source” that carried DripWorks through the 1990’s, finally for the last 15 years “Quality Drip Irrigation Supplies" has been the line that says it all.
There weren’t many people buying online in 1992. We spent 90% of our marketing budget on advertising in gardening and farming magazines. We would set up booths at expos, shows, and fairs to give out catalogs to potential customers who showed interest.

                                     

Through the 1990s we grew to the point where right after launching DripWorks website in 1998, the opportunity surfaced to buy a few flat acres in Willits and build 15,000 feet of office and warehouse space. The next year the internet (remember the “bubble”) and DripWorks took off.
Through the second decade we filled every inch of our buildings, hiring customer service representatives to answer phones, enlarging the scope of the marketing department, and carefully stocking the warehouse. Today more than half of the orders come from DripWorks website www.dripworks.com. It is easy to navigate, place orders, and is full of great resources about all of the products necessary to set up a system. Here are some of the resources available on our website.

• Live Chat allows customers to communicate directly with customer service representatives from the website without the need for calling in and speaking to someone over the phone. The chat interface allows the customer to type out their questions and for a Customer Service Representative to type back an answer to their question. It is available for people who have questions about drip irrigation, need recommendations about specific products, or for people who are having challenges setting up their system.

• How to Videos show drip emitters and sprayers in action, and they show just how simple it is to put together various starter kits. There are customer testimonials, hands on tutorials, demos on how to use some of their tools, large and small liner installation videos, and action videos from some of the product manufacturers.

• The Drip Planning Guide is a downloadable guide that explains to you the basics of drip irrigation. It’s an understandable “must” for all novices. It will also show you how to plan and set up a garden or farm layout.

• The Gallery of Plans is a compendium of plans showing line drawings of many different possible drip irrigation setups. Products are listed by name and part number, prices, and even providing an order total that makes the purchasing process very easy.

DripWorks has a long history of providing the highest quality, longest lasting products to customers all over the United States and beyond. They will help you to grow a thriving garden while saving time, water, and money.