What am I planning? Well, the biggest thing is to rent a small tiller for the day and till everything with the tiller, instead of doing it by hand, like I did last year . . . ugh. We've got heavy clay over here in 4a-land, not to mention years worth of uncontrolled weeds (including milkweed, which is great for butterflies but terrible for veggies -- and thistles, which aren't great for anything as far as I can tell). Tilling by hand, well, let's just say that in three weeks I managed to get a total of 8'x3' tilled with my own two hands (well, Hubby helped some, but I did 95% of it!).
Yep, renting a tiller. . .
Then to go get some of the free compost -- my city has a program where you can go to a specific location and dump all your green stuff (right now it's full of Christmas trees!), including leaves and grass clippings, basically all the green stuff that our garbage companies won't touch. The city piles it into one HUGE (right now it's a good 12' high and a good 100' long, and it's *been* composting for months!) compost pile, to which people just add as they have stuff to get rid of. Then, in the spring, people can just take what they need from the stuff that's been composted, although you have to get there quickly, once it's good weather for breaking ground, the entire compost pile can disappear within days.
Our plan this year is to go over as soon as the compost is ready and get a jump on it, then keep it in bags and so on until the ground is ready to be worked. We may go before we rent the tiller.
Years and years of neglect and not growing anything in the beds we have at home means that the soil desperately needs to be . . . enhanced. I know there's a right and proper word, but I've forgotten it!
Till up the weeds, add compost, till again, let it rest and warm up. Around here your cold weather stuff (for us, that would be beets and beans) goes in right around the end of April, then your warm weather stuff gets planted right about Mother's Day Weekend (which is also the fishing opener!) in mid-May, ie, tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, etc. People thought I was crazy for putting my tomatoes in the ground on Mother's Day, but it didn't harm them at all.
Also going to clear more of the strawberry patch and buy new plants, to start the strawberry rotation. Didn't have much luck last year with Ebay (you get what you pay for!!), going to try local nurseries to see if they have any interesting varieties.
Veggie garden plans: Beets, beans, cucumbers, zukes, tomatoes, jalapeno and bell peppers, and maybe carrots if there's room.
Going to add chamomile and mint to the herb garden and hope the dill and sage come back!
And we'd like to buy a 2 or 3 year old apple tree to put in the backyard and give the dogs some shade, we're mostly full sun all day and the dogs hate it because there's no shade. We planted our first apple tree two summers ago and Dog 1 ate enough of the bark off of the trunk (it was only a baby tree) to kill the tree. This year, we're taking out the old one, putting in a new one, painting it with orange juice (Dog 1 hates oranges) and putting a tall fence around it. That should foil Dog 1's plans!
We grow organically and we prefer heirloom varieties. The goal is to eventually grow 100% heirloom, organic veggies.
Whitewater
How much time do they all take? I know it's all joy but it also seems like alot!
