Indoor gardening allows you to extend the growing season and have fresh fruits and vegetables year-round, but working outdoors also has its pleasures. Being close to nature, feeling the sun on your face, smelling the fragrant fall leaves in the autumn and the fresh, budding flowers in the spring.
However, doing both requires more organizational skills as you must juggle the chores from two completely opposite planting schedules.
The following is a guide to various gardening chores which must be performed at different times during the year.
Fall outdoor garden chores- Harvest plants and mulch any plants that have not yet been harvested, remove weeds or dead plants from the garden, and add them to the compost heap. Use compost from last year to feed the soil for next year’s garden and place blankets around warm weather trees such as figs.
Harvest, dry, and store your seeds for replanting in the spring. Preserve cucumbers, fruits, beets, cabbage, etc. In temperate climates, plant quick-growing root crops such as potatoes, radishes, carrots, onions, and parsnips for early winter harvest.
Fall indoor gardening chores – Add compost to pots and transplants young plants.
Winter outdoor gardening chores – Repot, root prune dormant fruit trees or bushes. In the late winter, set up hoop houses, sow tomato, peppers, squash, zucchini, cucumbers indoors for the spring garden. Sow cool-season vegetables such as lettuce and corn outdoors in hoop houses for the spring garden.
Winter indoor gardening chores – harvest fruits and vegetables from an indoor garden planted in the summer.
Spring outdoor gardening chores – Harvest potatoes and onions planted in the fall, remove mulch, compost the soil, Till and aerate the soil, release beneficial nematodes, transplant seedlings into larger pots or garden beds outside.
Spring indoor gardening chores – Remove dead or unproductive plants and recycle them to the compost heap.
Summer outdoor gardening chores – Water frequently, remove weeds, treat diseased plants or plants under attack from pests. Plan recipes to incorporate garden vegetables as they become ready for harvest.
Summer indoor gardening chores- Sow new vegetable seeds indoors for next winter container gardening.