It was a beautiful day and fairly warm. I've been missing the garden so much that when I finished my coffee this morning, I put on my sunscreen, got my visor on, ignored my household chores and headed out. I was cleaning rows and making plans when DS joined me and put some muscle in the project. He'd been here doing some work for DH.
We got all the trellises cleared and the last of last years debris out of the way. Another day like that and I could literally start planting if the time was right. I went ahead and mapped out all my plans for the main bedding area. We have to put one more trellis back up that got knocked down by the flood last year and put more soil in the raised beds. Since I'm dealing with nematodes, yellow cornmeal will be worked into every area of my garden along with the whatever amendments will be needed. I think the squash and melon bed will be the only thing I'll have to til this year unless we add another row. The black plastic has done it's job.
We will always have to til the melon bed because that is where we dump all our compost in the spring...what we've saved and what the horse, goat and chicken pens provide plus what the creek banks yield along with whatever I buy. We mix it all up with anything else we have to add and it goes where it's needed. It greatly benefits the melon bed. Since I've never rotated it, I'm thinking about planting the squash there this year...mostly to avoid the squash borers to some degree.
We got all the trellises cleared and the last of last years debris out of the way. Another day like that and I could literally start planting if the time was right. I went ahead and mapped out all my plans for the main bedding area. We have to put one more trellis back up that got knocked down by the flood last year and put more soil in the raised beds. Since I'm dealing with nematodes, yellow cornmeal will be worked into every area of my garden along with the whatever amendments will be needed. I think the squash and melon bed will be the only thing I'll have to til this year unless we add another row. The black plastic has done it's job.
We will always have to til the melon bed because that is where we dump all our compost in the spring...what we've saved and what the horse, goat and chicken pens provide plus what the creek banks yield along with whatever I buy. We mix it all up with anything else we have to add and it goes where it's needed. It greatly benefits the melon bed. Since I've never rotated it, I'm thinking about planting the squash there this year...mostly to avoid the squash borers to some degree.