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Getting to be that time again. At least to get the ground work done.
Tilled up the garden last night. I was initially a little disappointed. After composting all the pumpkins and leaves from last year, it's not great soil in there yet. Still a bit hard, and the new tiller (paid for by selling the transi tomb) struggled in places.
Then, I look back. This time last year, that was grass there and the sod cutter struggled with cutting into the soil. The garden bed has VASTLY improved over last years' already, and it's a little surprising how much more SPACE I have to work with this year as well. The bed is roughly twice the size of last year, since areas that were unworkable last year are now fine thanks to sheet composting all the grass/weeds, and transplanting the raven grass, it reaches all the way to the fence. It's just going to take a couple more years to get the real rich soil that my smaller bed boasts. We'll be able to be completely self sufficient without my Uncle's farm if we ever need to be. Just won't be able to do corn as well.
Tested new plan for watering, and it worked wonderfully. Honest to goodness ROWS this year.
We're unseasonably warm, and I'm considering planting earlier as a result. Rule of thumb is to wait till Mother's day around here, but the one corn variety I bought is frost tolerant anyway, so I think I'll plant it on May day. This would accelerate my whole schedule 2 weeks, and might mean fresh corn on the 4th of July.
3 varieties of corn this year. The early frost tolerant corn, a supersweet corn to be planted a couple weeks after the first to avoid cross pollination, and some silage corn (technically a maize) to be planted several weeks after THAT, chosen because it grows TALL, to be used for decoration. This should give us fresh home grown corn July through August and enough stalks I shouldn't need to go harvest corn or reed grass from anywhere else unless I decide I want the reed grass look.
Doing a three sisters garden amidst all this, so beans get planted a couple weeks after each corn, followed by pumpkins a couple weeks after the beans.
Have technically 8 varieties of pumpkins this year, but really only 4.
Lumina (the white ones from last year)
Sugar (small pie pumpkins to be carved and placed on stakes)
Musque de Provence (french brown pumpkin)
Cinderella pumpkins.
The other 4 was is mini pumpkin mix (technically gourds) I'm planting along the fence and letting it climb the fence, for my daughter.
Moved a ton of raven grass last fall, split, replanted. Not sure if it's made it or not yet. I normally transplant the stuff in the spring, but needed to clear it out last fall so the garden was ready now. Most likely going to be a light crop of it this year even if the transplants survived they usually don't really produce the first year.
Tilled up the garden last night. I was initially a little disappointed. After composting all the pumpkins and leaves from last year, it's not great soil in there yet. Still a bit hard, and the new tiller (paid for by selling the transi tomb) struggled in places.
Then, I look back. This time last year, that was grass there and the sod cutter struggled with cutting into the soil. The garden bed has VASTLY improved over last years' already, and it's a little surprising how much more SPACE I have to work with this year as well. The bed is roughly twice the size of last year, since areas that were unworkable last year are now fine thanks to sheet composting all the grass/weeds, and transplanting the raven grass, it reaches all the way to the fence. It's just going to take a couple more years to get the real rich soil that my smaller bed boasts. We'll be able to be completely self sufficient without my Uncle's farm if we ever need to be. Just won't be able to do corn as well.
Tested new plan for watering, and it worked wonderfully. Honest to goodness ROWS this year.
We're unseasonably warm, and I'm considering planting earlier as a result. Rule of thumb is to wait till Mother's day around here, but the one corn variety I bought is frost tolerant anyway, so I think I'll plant it on May day. This would accelerate my whole schedule 2 weeks, and might mean fresh corn on the 4th of July.
3 varieties of corn this year. The early frost tolerant corn, a supersweet corn to be planted a couple weeks after the first to avoid cross pollination, and some silage corn (technically a maize) to be planted several weeks after THAT, chosen because it grows TALL, to be used for decoration. This should give us fresh home grown corn July through August and enough stalks I shouldn't need to go harvest corn or reed grass from anywhere else unless I decide I want the reed grass look.
Doing a three sisters garden amidst all this, so beans get planted a couple weeks after each corn, followed by pumpkins a couple weeks after the beans.
Have technically 8 varieties of pumpkins this year, but really only 4.
Lumina (the white ones from last year)
Sugar (small pie pumpkins to be carved and placed on stakes)
Musque de Provence (french brown pumpkin)
Cinderella pumpkins.
The other 4 was is mini pumpkin mix (technically gourds) I'm planting along the fence and letting it climb the fence, for my daughter.
Moved a ton of raven grass last fall, split, replanted. Not sure if it's made it or not yet. I normally transplant the stuff in the spring, but needed to clear it out last fall so the garden was ready now. Most likely going to be a light crop of it this year even if the transplants survived they usually don't really produce the first year.
Any links would be much appreciated!
