Getting The Garden Ready. What Are You Doing In Your Garden?
It is that time of year to be getting the garden ready to plant. We have got a small area we are going to use this year for our garden. We tried a garden in another area a couple years ago and it did not do very good. Most of the area around us is sand. We had to do some looking and found this spot to put in the garden. The ground here looks a lot better than where we planted the first garden. We have been using our rabbit manure to help make this area better, we have been putting our used coffee grounds and also all our used tea bags. Here is the area we are using before I tilled the area up.
Had to dig the tree out of the middle and get the roots out also. There are lots of small bushes that were growing here and I went and cut them all down, now I need to go and make sure I get all the roots out. It took me about two hours or so to get it tilled up and now I need to rake it out and get all the grass out and check for roots and make sure that they are all out. If I do not get the roots out I will have another tree growing in the middle again. Here is what it looks like after the first time running the tiller in the area.
I will get some good compost to mix into the soil and add some other things to help make the soil the best it can be. We will be using this area for a garden for quite a while. We are going to plant some garlic up at the point in the top of the picture because once you plant garlic in an area it will also be there. we will be planning out what we want to go into the garden and getting the seeds real soon. It is a small area but for now, it will be fine, we will have a bigger area somewhere and we will use this little area for our garlic and probably tomatoes as we use lots of tomatoes. We will fence it off so animals will stay out of it hopefully. I will be showing more as we continue getting it ready and start planting.
Somebody just did a post about what veggies to grow in poor, subpar soil for the first year or two to help build up the soil. Did you happen to catch it? She didn't have sand to deal with but I'd imagine the principle is the same.
No, I did not see that post. The big problem with sand is that it does not hold any moisture, so I will have to use some amendments to correct that.
This might be the post @mtnmeadowmomma was referring to. It is an excellent article! Definately worth a read!!
That's exactly the one, @powellx5, thank you!! I was racking my brain trying to recall who wrote it so I could find it!
Thanks for giving me a link to that post. It was a great read!
You’re both very, very welcome!
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Keep it up in your gardening. I have my garden also, full of tomatoes, peaches, apples, tomatoes, flowers, etc.
The soil looks dry. Also the area looks sanded as you stated before wouldn't be suitable for certain types of crops.
Yes, it is very dry as we are mostly sand. I will be adding compost to this as I will need it to hold some moisture. Most areas around here when tilled are just orange course sand, this has about 6 or so inches of topsoil. It will take some more work to get it the way I need it to be, you will see this as I go along. I have talked to an older man that grew up in this area and he has been and does help out alot.
Yes sir its that time of year Hope yours duse well this year brother. God Bless. You know I did upvote and resteem :)
Thanks, brother! It is going to be an interesting year. Hope yours does good also!
Looks like you got an excellent start on your new garden today. I have yet to figure out where I can put a garden that the chickens won’t destroy. They have a tendency to destroy most vegetables, I grow. 🐓🐓
I will have to put up a fence around mine. As at night, the deer will eat it up.
Cheers and kudos to you. Working on that soil will bring a lot of happiness to you (flowers and food too!), I'll try to post about my experience in gardening as well. I live in an arid zone near the equator, in South America, Venezuela. I'm also very into science and I try to mix it up with my experience growing both food and flowers (If you want check this one and this one too!) One of the first things I found is that even though this kind of soil looks like it's missing nutrients, it's an easy thing to fix, and the real problem is the density of the soil composition. If you keep it moist it will look better, but many roots will find it hard to reach new places nor the bottom of the soil because it lacks both oxygen and nitrogen. If you're thinking about what kind of food you should grow first, I would suggest squash, beans and corn. They grow well together, and just with a couple lines (It doesn't need to be the entire field) you can start to check out how it develops at short term. I also grow lettuce, guava, papaya and lemon trees. Mango and coconuts trees could be a long term choice if you aim to several years of improving your garden, I found a way to also help the growth on the trees and their leaves to a bigger size and I can later explain to you how.
2 month old pop corn plant
The second tip I can give you is that many roots also help to change the soil's composition. Beans for example, have the power to build nitrogen into your soil, and the theory that I'm currently developing involves knowing which type of root can help to make a better soil. I succeeded to turn my light brown soil into a reddish dark brown by only using plants and grass to keep the humidity for longer, and improve not only the composition, but its density as well , because I learnt that you don't only need compost (we can use almost every food scrap from the kitchen and lower our trash outcome, for the better, and make not only compost, but humus), you can use dry leaves and branches (dry matter, grass clips are a tree's superfood), compost or humus (fresh matter) and your original soil to build a lasagna layer style of gardening onto your desired area to try (A technique known as permaculture).
Lettuce germination directly into the soil
I want to thank you because maybe to grow food or start a garden isn't something that someone forces you to do. It's something that you decided and wanted to, and it's not just about the food itself. Many of us learn at a very short age that trees produce the oxygen we breathe, and they also clean out the air pollution while doing so. My third discovery growing plants was that only one papaya tree can make up to 220 pounds of O2 per year. So, imagine if one has let's say, 10.000 plants (that's my case, althought there are small plants and I have many different species), you could be making millions of liters (or pounds) of oxygen, sending them to the air and absolutely nobody is tracking this. So, part of my own research involves how that lack of control in both ammounts of oxygen and pollution is related to storms, tornados and any natural disaster you can imagine, but the most important part being that we cannot entirely control, but we can help indeed and manage how we see and treat not only the soil for the better, but the skies, rains and winds up to a new point of view. One where we can bring more purpose to the forces that we're not currently getting the best part of them (pure raw energy). I hope this has helped you at least a little, and I would like to keep sharing my thoughts and research, and specially to keep meeting and seeing people like you and me. We can be heroes! Thank you again for your work.