It's still early and a lot of snow on the ground but spring has sprung But I am not sure if it's too early to think about doing some hoeing or whatever yet.

My garden is a hot mess right now. At least last time I checked. I was using two plots and this is my third season gardening. Last year was a bit weird due to practically no real winter and an early hot spring, not to mention a drought. So the tomatoes were not too plentiful and the zukes were practically non-existent.

What I would like to do is be able to have an early start with some of the crops that do better with milder climes. For instance, lettuce should be sown just after the last frost, if I am not mistaken. It would be so nice to get a variety of greens and just sow them every few weeks and stagger the growing season. I also plan to grow an early small watermelon and they recommend starting it inside and then planting as a seedling.

Basically it's a matter of forethought and organization...two things I am working on in my life in general...

all your greens(lettuce, kale, spinach etc and PEAS) are cool loving so early is good ...all your fruiting stuff (peppers, tomatoes, squash, ) need a lengthy season of warmness but dont tolerate drought so you need to be on the watering, root crops go in best when its not so soggy or they rot but still need time to get thru the spring summer fall and generally are 100+ days .. but you can take your root crops right into the late fall usually and re-sow your cool stuff again at end of summer for another crop before it snows ..

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Jodi, my tomatoes didn't do so well last year but we had a freaky couple of seasons. No real winter--it got warm in Februrary and the trees started budding! And we had drought conditions in the Midwest so perhaps that stunted the tomatoes, zukes and cukes. I want to get a jumpstart this year, plus do some mulching! There is some invasive species that just strangled the plants last year. It was nearly impossible to weed out and raised beds are supposed to be good for avoiding weeds. So I now understand why people mulch.