Prepping the Garden!! April 2018
This week with the snow my landscaping truck sat and even after the snow was melted, the ground was way too soft to throw machines on. This opportunity was taken in great stride. My garden was subject to great neglect over the past year. Not having any time to garden last year, being full of work, all of my attention went to establishing my grape vines and asparagus. Lucky for my these two tasks were not over the top. This year I want to get it going, but, after this winter beat down on this garden, it was left looking like hell.
A mess I walked into, but once I took care of step one things did seem to take off. This was rake those leaves into piles, I'm going to use one of these piles. So after I get rid of the other piles and dig a 5'x5' wide and 2 foot deep hole.
I proceed to fill that hole with that pile of leaves and some fish remains. I back filled the hole and leveled the soil. I think this will make a great spot for my corn. Usually potatoes go here but I want to try something new. 9 stalks of corn with be sitting here in a few months if all goes right. But for now those leaves and stuff have time to break down before I sow.
After getting the home for my corn straightened out, I then prep the area for the radishes, squash, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, onions,melons, and so on. I do this by turning the soil the old fashioned way, with just a shovel and my boot leather. I stay away from using a tiller because I feel like it disturbs the life in the soil too much. I hate the idea of all of those worms I worked so hard to attract getting sliced to bits.
There was a few worms in every shovel full. So much that I had to fight the urge to collect them for fishing, but, I hold back from that in my garden. These critters have a job to do! I value seeing many worms just imagining how many nutrient dense castings the are left in their wake.
I was tired after doing all of that digging but my work was not done. I still had to prep the slope for the melons and my picking/ watering trail was also covered in leaves and weeds. Getting that done made it possible for me to get to and fro without stomping in the garden now that its been turned.
The only thing I did not get to this day was redoing the strawberry patch cage, despite that a huge difference was made. Over the weekend I plan to get some seeds and start sowing the cold season crops. I am very excited for this years garden.
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Good job @nickbuha
or if I should wish it not quite so full so you can garden a bit this year!
But, then again store bought tomatoes taste like cardboard.
Thank you Very much! Balance is key, I do have less work taken on this year so I should have the time. I am just dying to bite into a fresh picked tomato.
Nice clean up!
Does the sun hit straight on, east to west or does it only hit part of the day?
I forgot a most important piece of info, the hill faces south, which gets hit with full sun most of the day. The only factor against this are some of the large trees. Thank you! :)
Oh nice! Perhaps you can work with the trees? Plant around their bases.
But if they are tall trees at the bottom and taking all the light, and you own the land, cut them. Use the stumps for planters the logs for planter boxes of raised earth mounts for planting.
Hard work though.
The trees are not much of an issue, I have cleared most of the nuisance trees out of the way. (only one old maple now and I'm in no rush to cut it down) lol At this point I hope I don't have too much garden, last week one of our clients had us till up two huge spaces of their yard. Me and the owner are going to tend to it and our client has the benefit of having fresh picked veggies whenever he wants. I want to save those posts as this man, our client, means a hell of a lot to me and I have a whole segment of posting on just him. As far as ownership of the garden in this post, I do all of the work on my own (I have free rain here). I rent the upstairs half of the house, but even better is my landlord is also my boss, the owner of JJ Scapes. Being his only crew manager and air of the business when he is ready to retire, he gives me a great deal on rent and plenty of planting space. Honestly he is more of a father than a boss. I love your Idea about using the stumps for planters, I will probably end up doing just that with the maple tree when I cut that ancient thing down. As much as I don't want to add this, I am also happy to, a pre post, as a landscaper I have access to a ton of building material. I have stacks of bricks from a job I did last year and plan to make raised beds with them. and will fill them with a few yards of compost from our wholesaler. I really hope I'm not in over my head.
I wouldn’t be in much of a hurry to remove an old growth oak either.
Awesome on the living situation and the perks!
Lucky to have all the left over toys! Man that’s cool!
Have you thought about erosion control using those bricks? Once you remove trees it can be an issue.
Yes, on the slope I usually plant grass seed keep it rooted in but once the melon vines journey down i let the grass cover the melons from animals. I usually have to redo that to keep a turf, as the grass doesn't like that soil so much and the wild onions and ragweed don't do enough. lol did you mean the toys as in the swing set and whatnot for my bosses 4 year old or all of the fun earth moving and gardening tools? :)
As in the toys, I was talking about the bricks and left overs. Lol
Great job on the garden buddy! That's a lot of hard work. Looks great!
Thank you very much my friend! :)
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