Spring planting gets most of the attention on a gardening calendar, but the prep work that happens in the weeks beforehand has a bigger effect on how well that planting actually performs than most people expect. This is about the jobs themselves, clearing, feeding and checking your setup, rather than a planting calendar; for what to actually put in the ground and when by region, this site's dedicated summer and winter planting guides cover that in full.
Start by clearing out anything left over from winter. Spent brassicas, bolted greens and any winter crop that's finished producing should come out, along with the weeds that have inevitably crept in over the cooler months while growth was slow. Diseased material is worth binning rather than composting, since a home compost heap rarely gets hot enough to reliably kill off plant pathogens, and you don't want to spread a problem straight back into the bed you've just cleared.
Once a bed is cleared, refresh it with compost or other organic matter before the new season's plantings go in. Winter cropping and months of rain both draw down a bed's nutrients and can compact the soil, so digging in compost or well-rotted manure ahead of spring planting rebuilds fertility and structure rather than asking a tired bed to feed a full new season on what's left. This is also the natural point to check soil drainage after a wet winter, since waterlogged patches that were fine for hardy winter crops can cause real problems for the more tender plants going in over spring and summer.
It's also worth checking your watering setup before the season ramps up, not after the first heatwave exposes a problem. Test taps, hoses, timers and any drip or irrigation lines for leaks, blockages or perished fittings while there's no urgency, since a broken system discovered mid-summer, when new transplants need consistent water most, is a much bigger problem than the same fault found in early spring with time to fix it.
Timing all of this against frost risk matters as much as the tasks themselves. Bed clearing and soil refreshing can start well ahead of the last frost, since neither job depends on tender plants being in the ground yet, but hold off on the irrigation-dependent final checks and any actual spring transplanting until your own region's frost risk has genuinely passed, which varies significantly across the country. Getting the beds ready early and then waiting for the right planting window, rather than rushing both at once, is the safer order to do things in.
Getting the beds ready early and then waiting for the right planting window, rather than rushing both at once, is the safer order to do things in.