Have you seen the weekend forecast? It’s ideal for one of the most important gardening activities of all, namely bed preparation. And the payoff for prepping is huge, resulting in healthier plants and more robust growth, which often means far fewer pest and disease issues. Here’s how you do it.

Start with a general cleaning of your beds, whether flower or vegetable (or both). You don’t have to shoot for perfection; in fact, leaving a few leaves here and there will provide cover and nesting sites for beneficial insects as well as essential organic matter (more on that in a moment). But you should remove weeds that might compete with whatever you're growing, and any remaining plant debris that might harbor diseases.

I’m kind of a neat freak, so I strike a balance by keeping my garden beds pretty tidy, but in out of the way (and out of sight) areas I keep piles of leaves and twigs as homes for the good bugs. The piles ultimately turn to compost, but I also maintain a large, dedicated compost enclosure that I fill with leaves in the fall and plant refuse throughout the year.

Whatever was growing last year in your beds more than likely sucked most of the nutrients out of the soil, and those nutrients need to be replaced. Fertilizer is not the solution, because by the time the spring planting season rolls around the nutrients in most fertilizers will have disappeared. What the soil needs most (and what most soils lack) is organic matter.

So what is organic matter, and why does it matter so much? Organic matter includes leaves, grass clippings, plant refuse, composted animal manures, agricultural byproducts (such as cotton burrs and alfalfa meal) – pretty much any organic material that slowly decomposes. It matters because it’s the source of food for all the critters that inhabit the soil. As they feed on the organic matter in the soil and leave their deposits behind, they improve the soil’s structure, tilth, water-holding capacity, nutrient content, biological activity, and so on. In other words, they keep the soil alive.

Bagged products are the most convenient source of organic matter, and for most gardeners they’re the way to go. Excellent choices include those from Espoma (Raised Bed Planting Mix, Mushroom Compost, Land and Sea Compost, Cow Manure, and Worm Castings), plus Nature’s Blend, Back to Nature, and if you’re on a budget, topsoil. Of course, homemade compost is awesome stuff too.

If your soil is in good shape you can get by with a two-inch layer of soil amendments spread evenly over the bed. If it’s less than ideal, go with a four-inch layer. Either way, you can either gently work the amendments into the soil with a garden fork or a shovel to a depth of six inches or so (basically, the root zone of most plants) or you can just leave it be. In time, it’ll naturally make its way into the root zone with the help of earthworms.

I’ve written a lot about the importance of maintaining healthy soil because I learned early on in my gardening career that the secret to success is in the soil. Here are some of my more recent posts.

In my large containers -- more than 18-inches in diameter -- I generally don’t replace all the potting mix every year. Instead, I remove a third to half of the old stuff and mix it with new stuff. For decades, I’ve used Southwood's Custom Potting Mix, and although I’ve tried plenty of other mixes on the market I’ve yet to find a better product.

Clover is a legume, a type of plant that fixes nitrogen from the air and converts it into a form that plants can use. Beans, peas, peanuts, carob, even the Kentucky Coffee tree are examples of legumes.

Clover can be planted in March/April or September/October. The seeds are tiny, and can be sown by hand on bare ground (scratch the surface with a rake first) or in existing lawns. You can also add it to fescue seed prior to sowing. Water regularly to keep the seeds moist until they germinate. When the clover flowers, stand back and watch as bees flock to them!

Knowing when to plant is tricky, especially when it comes to vegetables, whether from seed or transplants. That’s because the decision is based on a combination of actual weather conditions plus soil temperatures and not -- as is often suggested -- calendar dates. I’ll dig into the topic in detail next week.