Well, Spring's still 7 wks away but with a break in the rain and a few warmer days has me thinking of my garden and what I can plan for now in advance. I had out my local gardening calendar that has been a great little resource to help me remember when to do what.
I noticed the garden beds had lost their definition and that I hadn't really thought about how I was going to rotate the veges this coming year. So this afternoon I cut in around the beds and moving a few along. Since several had become overgrown it meant I could "recut" the bed where I wanted it. (The chickens were pretty happy to see me back working in the garden and jumped with glee on the bed I was digging to snaffle up the grubs and insects and the kids were pretty happy observing all the worms in the soil). Now I have 8 nice 2x2m beds (4 of which have things currently growing). There is also plenty of room to dig up and put the potatoes in without needing to re-use the same area as last year. We had mulled over whether to put in some raised beds, but then that defeats the purpose of having the chickens in the tractor weeding and fertilising for us (not that much of that goes on since they free range all day lol) not to mention a bit costly to set up when I have my soil in a good condition where it is.
Over the next few weeks I'm going to re-read my Linda Woodrow Permaculture Home Garden book to figure a few things out. I also intend on using her idea for the paths by digging up all the weeds, laying thick cardboard down and laying mulch/sawdust on top. I did this during my first growing season and it looked really nice and kept things tidy. So Simon's going to head to my parents place tomorrow and help out mulching up their hedge and bring it home for laying on the paths.
I sorted through my seed packets and checked if there were any packets I don't have (after having lost my big bag of seeds last year). But I seem to have all the basics and I think I'll stick with that this year rather than branching out too much. I just want to get back to continuous planting which I didn't seem to pay much attention to last year.
I have a few packets of seeds set aside that I will get going into the seed trays in the next few weeks.
My poor tamarillo tree is looking a bit sad - it was doing well when it had the frost cloth over it, but one night the cloth blew off and suffered as a result. It may bounce back perhaps, so hoping for the best.
3 comments:
That brief moment of sunshine last week had us planning our garden too;-) Hubby had a good tidy up around the place and I'm plotting what to pop in the seedling trays.
I'm all a buzz about the garden again too - once we pass the shortest day I'm motivated again! And buying seeds again. lots of them. oops.
Re raised beds - this blog post made me think hard about that, take a look: http://simonsallotment.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-i-garden.html
Sound good Sharon - what are you putting in?
Free, thanks for that. Interesting, coz I have that book he was critiquing but I don't think of the raised bed system in the book the same as the raised beds we're thinking of (aka high wooden sides filled with new soil). The book's raised beds are just dug up and raised in the middle but flush with the ground if that makes sense?
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