About this time of year, I come home in the evening after it's dark and walk around the garden with a flashlight. Everything seems ready to explode. Like the kale plant above: It seems to thrive in these cool, rainy spring days.

That means it's time to improve the soil. Specific instructions vary with your soil type. But whatever the soil, it's a good bet your garden could benefit from some organic fertilizer, compost and a mulch about now.

Every year, I buy a big bag of organic fertilizer and broadcast it across the garden. In my case, much of the garden is covered with clover - this helps protect the bare soil from deteriorating in the winter rain. It's important to use organic fertilizer because it's truly "slow release," unlike chemical fertilizers which pass too quickly through the soil. Here's my favorite local organic fertilizer, formulated for Seattle's rainy climate:


The three numbers stand for nitrogen, phosphorous, and potash (a water-soluble form of potassium). Those are three of the main elements plants require.

Next, I amend my soil with compost. I typically add an inch or so across the garden. If you don't yet make your own, you should - more on that later. But you can also buy it at garden centers.

Then I turn over the whole garden with a shovel, chopping up the cover crop with the shovel as I go.

Then I cover the whole bed with a mulch. This year I used a heavily composted horse manure. As a mulch, this material is reputed to be full of weed seeds. But it was so full of wonderful worms that I went ahead and added 2 inches on top of my garden soil. The horse owners assured me they buy expensive hay, so the manure should be weed-free. We'll see. But it's full of worms, so I know it'll add life to the soil. Most people wouldn't add so much, but my soil was in need of a little love this year.

I immediately planted peas in my newly prepared bed. They say you should wait two weeks for the cover crop to decompose. But I'm late, so what the heck.