Key Takeaways
Clear your garden of diseased plant debris and early weeds, and prune damaged branches with sterilized tools.Rotate crops every year to avoid perpetuating soilborne pests and diseases.If you had problems in the past, choose plant varieties that were bred for resistance to certain pests and diseases.
While there is no infallible defense against pests and diseases affecting your flower and veggie beds, there are preventative steps you can take before the growing season starts. If you don’t act, pests and diseases from the previous growing season may linger through the winter and reinfect your garden in spring.
Whether you’ve struggled with aphids, powdery mildew, slugs, or another plant ailment in the past, here are 9 gardening tasks that you should tackle before spring to thwart pests and diseases naturally.
1. Remove Diseased Plant Debris
The number one way to get ahead of plant problems is to clean up and destroy infected plant debris as soon as you can. If your plants were plagued by pests of any sort or developed mildew, rust, or another plant disease, gather up and throw the infected plant material in the trash or burn it if local regulations allow it. Diseased plants should never be composted, as many pests and diseases can survive the composting process and infect any plant you apply the compost to later on.
2. Prune Damaged Branches
If your trees and shrubs sustained winter damage and have roughly broken or hanging branches, trim the damaged stems away before spring starts. Using your loppers or a handsaw, make a clean, sharp cut. This helps plants to heal and reduces the spread of diseases. Broken branches that are left in place may tear further and expose more of the plant’s tender inner stem to bacteria and fungi.
3. Sterilize Garden Tools
Powdery mildew and many other diseases potentially spread from plant to plant on dirty garden tools, which is why it’s good practice to clean tools in between each plant you work with. If you didn’t get the chance to clean your tools in autumn, early spring is a great time to sterilize tool blades with rubbing alcohol or a 10% bleach solution. Just make sure to thoroughly dry the tools when you’re done so they don’t rust.
4. Divide Crowded Perennials
Overgrown perennials become stressed, develop bald centers, stop flowering, and succumb to mildew problems due to poor air flow. Some perennials prefer to be divided in spring and others in fall; however, if your plants are heavily overgrown, it’s often better to divide them as soon as the soil is not longer frozen and workable rather than wait.
To help new divisions settle in quickly, divide perennials on an overcast day, keep their roots as intact as possible, replant the divisions as soon as you can, and water the plants deeply when you’re done to help their roots settle.
5. Test Your Soil
Soils that are depleted of nutrients or that have the wrong pH level for the plants you’re growing create a host of problems and leave plants more vulnerable to pests and diseases. Not only do poor soils lead to nutrient deficiencies, but they may also have an abundance of salt, be too compact or poorly draining, or have pH issues that impact how plants absorb nutrients. Conducting a soil test now will give you a general idea about the health of your garden and allow you to add amendments to your garden if your soil is found lacking.
6. Make a Crop Rotation Plan
Pests and plant diseases may build up in the soil of vegetable gardens if you grow the same crops in the same spot year after year. Rotating crops that belong to the same plant family every year naturally reduces pest and disease pressure. Use the time before the growing season starts to plan out a crop rotation and pick new growing spots for all the crops you want to grow this year. Check your records of previous gardening years if you have them, and if you don’t, make sure to maintain records from now on. Combine crop rotation with mechanical barriers such as floating row covers and other natural pest control measures.
7. Tackle Early Weeds
The damaging effect of weeds is not limited to weakening garden plants by reducing air flow and competing for soil, space, and water. Many weeds also serve as host plants for pests and diseases, which then spread to your veggies, herbs, and flowers. Controlling weeds early in the season is key. Weeds are easy to hand-pull or hoe out when they’re freshly sprouted, and their leaves and roots are still young and tender. If an area is badly overgrown with weeds, an alternative to manual removal is to lay down mulch or cardboard in early spring, which suppresses weed growth.
8. Improve Drainage
Drainage problems can spell disaster for gardens and cause plants to develop root rot and die back fast. If you know that your beds have drained poorly in the past, early spring is a good time to correct these issues by adding drainage ditches or grading beds to improve water flow. If the ground isn’t frozen, blend some compost or other organic matter into clay-heavy soils to reduce compaction and improve drainage.
9. Purchase Resistant Seeds and Plants
Late winter to early spring is the time to order bare-root plants and seeds. If you’ve struggled with powdery mildew, squash vine borers, or other specific pests and diseases in the past, select disease- and pest-resistant varieties. Investing in resistant plants reduces the need for pest and disease control measures and potentially eliminates certain plant problems from your garden for good.
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