Cleaning the 3 Gs

Garage, Garden, and Garbage are all part of spring cleaning, that is if you have these. I have two out to the three— garden and garbage.

Several years ago, I put fake grass in my tiny garden because I had a hand mower and never used it. Spring is the time to set your garden up for its summer beauty. According to Get Busy Gardening, you will want to remove any winter mulch, trim shrubs, remove what is dead, etc. Now if you are a vegetable gardener like my friend Hank, you will want to ready your seeds, maybe start plants indoors and get your vegetable garden beds ready to produce a bumper crop this summer. “Amend your soil with compost or dehydrated manure (bagged, composted manure). Add what you can. For a new garden, 1 to 4 inches is recommended, depending on the soil. For an established garden, generally 1/2 to 1 inch is ideal, but you can often get away with less (1/4 inch).” — New York Botanic Garden Once you have done this work, you can water your plants, relax and enjoy the beauty of your yard.

Spring is an ideal time to clean your garage too, and I mean really clean your garage. To start you want to empty your garage completely, Then give it a heavy-duty clean with a Pinesol, basic H, Lysol, etc. With everything out of the garage, you can sort it into three piles— keep, donate, and throw away. When sorting be honest as to whether you have used something in the last year (i.e. tennis racket, power drill, pogo stick, etc). Once this is done, you can determine how to store the keep pile (and if your current storage method still works). “Depending on what you have in your garage and what you need to store, you may be facing some interesting storage dilemmas. It seems that nearly EVERYTHING in the garage is oddly shaped—it’s either very, very large and bulky (such as weed trimmers, chainsaws, or sports equipment) or very, very small and easy to lose (like nails, screws, bits, or gardening markers)” — Ruth Soukup, Living Well Spending Less

Now that your garden and garage are clean, it is time to tackle your garage area. In NYC, we have 4 bins— garbage, paper recycling, plastic, metal and glass recycling, and compost (a brown bin is provided for this by the city). “All that trash together with older remains attracts flies. Taken separately, flies are already a nuisance. But these insects lay their eggs in trash cans that spread strong odors. When you fail to clean your trash can, a layer of moist organic material emerges in the container. This slimy film is a perfect nest for flies. After having flies buzzing around, you could start seeing maggots crawling inside your trash can.” — Clean Cans Therefore spring is a good time to give your garbage cans/bins a thorough cleaning. I drilled holes in the bottom of mine, so rainwater would drain out. Sitting water in the bottom is a perfect place for bugs or flies to hang out.

If like my friend, Hank’s wife, Ellen, you plan to entertain, then you will definitely want to utilize the above tips to make your outdoor space pretty for guests. And who doesn’t love a good backyard BBQ (maybe your old rusted grill that could use a good cleaning too— find out how in next week’s blog).