The Prepping Has Begun

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I love the start of the garden beds, getting your hands dirty, feeling the energy of the earth after the winter, know that you are nurturing the soil so in turn the vegetables grown will nurture your body and just seeing the transformation.  After the accident in December I had my work cut out for me in preparing some of the garden beds.  There was still debris in the soil, the dirt had been turned over with the putting up of the new fence, which also meant rocks, roots, etc, the garden dividers had been moved, broken, toppled – so first thing was to go through and pull the dead plants, pull roots and get any accident debris.  Check!

Then it was off to the garden store to purchase some organic garden soil and compost.  Last fall I had layered compost on the beds and turned them – so I am sure the compost is buried deep in the ground – but the beautiful black soil that I had in the beds is now a brown and some even palomino colored soil – ugh!

The organic soil and compost has been poured and raked across the bed.  Now I hand till it – love this part, mixing the soil and an upper body work out – fantastic!  Wanted to get this part done before the rains came.  The weather forecast was predicting 5 days of rain – so I want it all to mix together and get rid of the clumps.

The rains came and I am so glad that I got everything done that I did.  I usually will start my seeds inside, but this year we traveled a couple of weekends in April and will be gone for a week in the beginning of May and then again at the end of May.  I would have had to get one of my neighbors to come over twice a day and spritz. etc the seedlings.  I wanted to get the beds ready so that when we are back I could direct sow – and if we get a freeze I will still have time to direct sow again.  Over this last weekend we did get a slight freeze.  First I made my rows, breaking up any clumps, pulling more debris, removing rocks and roots.

I always plant some marigolds in between the rows, natural pest repellant.

Next, I raid my neighbors recycling bin for newspaper and cut it into strips.  I place 2 or 3 pieces of newspapers between each row and cover with mulch.  This helps keep the weeds at bay and keep the moisture in.  So now I am ready when I get back next week to plant some of the seeds.  I have one more bed to prep, but that one does not need as much work.

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