Garden Preparations

Warm weather stirs the garden bug in us; time to turn some soil!

We fired up the old tractor to work this section of garden.

   As the sun rose over the little homestead this weekend, we gathered our cultivating tools for some serious turnover. Our pasture garden still has kale, chard, onions and garlic heads, but several areas were open for preparations. In an effort to cut our till time, we simply covered our unplanted (or already harvested) areas of garden with a heavy layer of leaves. To prepare these areas we raked the leaves to the side, ran a cultivator over the row--ready to go.

   The tea and herb garden were easy to prepare with the heavy mulch method, however, the back garden section near our greenhouse was left to rest over winter. Not having prepared it with mulch, we used the tractor and tiller to turn the soil. This will make it easier to "hill up" the rows before planting and covering with a heavy mulch.

  Our greenhouse is currently nurturing seedlings, potted herbs, and a few winter greens (planted there incase the frost killed the others). A gentle dose of fertilizer and a good watering was all that we needed there.

   All in all it seems we had some very productive garden time...now, let's get that last frost done so we can plant!

simplychele