Well we have been insanely busy down here in the Maketewah
Valley. This year my boyfriend and I are
working at 3 different garden spots in the neighborhood, with help from some
friends too! It's been rather tough working full
time, and spending every free hour of sunlight digging and turning beds! I’m worn out, but the big projects are done! Here is a brief overview on what we’ve been
doing…..
One of gardens is in a friend’s yard down the block, just
a big grassy backyard; perfect for bigger plants that need more water (easy
access to a hose). We dug a few beds out
last year, but this year we made them larger and used the cut strips of sod to
build up a natural border. Added compost
and leaf mold so they are ready!
The
border will be nice so we can keep building up that soil. The two long beds in the back grew our corn, beans, gourds and amaranth last summer; but this year I’m trying tobacco! More about
that later :) The huge bed adjacent to
the tobacco beds will be full of peppers and okra. We threw some peas in for now; they should be
about done by the time the peppers are going in.
At our house we are starting lots of seeds.
Everything is doing great! We have a small hoop house for starting seeds
and storing tools. We set up a heater a
couple nights last month when the temperature dropped below freezing, but for
the most part the hoop house stayed warm enough.
Here is a look inside….
We put our seedlings in tubs with glass or plastic bags
over them to keep everything warm and moist.
Now that the temperature is
rising, we remove the covers in the morning otherwise the seedlings will get
fried.
We used these old metal storage containers to hold
planters and then wrapped a large trash bag around them at night.
My boyfriend started some basil in these 2 liter
bottles. Just cut them in half, add
water and a cotton “wick” and plant.
Seem to be working out so far, and you don’t have to worry about
watering.
For this large, floating tobacco tray we just set up scrap
wood barriers with glass and plastic on top.; which worked perfectly for
starting greens.
Our compost piles....
We have been having beautiful weather here, so we took
this opportunity to turn our compost piles.
We have two big piles and two small ones, so we started with the bigger
pile. Fork it up, then turned the
adjacent pile into the first pile. Once
we got all the stuff that was still decomposing turned into the first pile; we
collected the pure, worm filled compost in plastic tubs and trash cans.
The plan is to let the compost dry out in these tubs over
the summer. The tubs and trash cans are
pretty deep so we will have to mix them up so the compost dries evenly. Drying the compost makes it easier to work
with. Rather than adding a handful of
compost mush to your soil, you’re adding dry compost mulch that easily forks
into the soil and spreads evenly.
We covered the tubs in plastic bags to keep the rain out,
and we will go from there this summer.
We turned the smaller compost piles onto the large pile. Now we have one huge pile that is close to
being done. The chickens get to scratch
around in this pile; turning it up, eating bugs and pooping all over making our
compost into gold! We throw our food
scraps in the smaller piles, layering it with yard waste and old hay from the
chicken coop. Another benefit of having
our compost organized in various stages of decomposition is that we don’t have
to worry about the chickens eating things they shouldn’t out of the food
scraps, like egg shells and avocado skins.
Dirty work, but the plants will thank us later!
Winter rye was planted all over last fall as a cover crop. So we turned it all over and added leaf mold and compost to prepare those beds. Took a bit of work, but the soil looks beautiful and ready to go.
We also rolled all the plastic off our hoop
houses, so the garden is ready for spring and summer. Currently we have peas, onions, greens and
lettuces planted. The fruit trees are
blooming, all our perennial herbs are coming back and the seedlings are growing
strong. This year looks very
promising!
