Monday, January 18, 2010

Build a Garden

This past week we built a garden. Meaning the kids played in the dirt, I watched them and scooped a few shovelfuls, and Karl did the rest.

This is what we did:
1) plot out the area for the garden. I think we're crazy--3000 square feet puts us more on a small farm scale. But what the heck, we have plenty of space in the back yard, why not produce?
2) level the area with a tractor.

3) Karl found a source for bulk chicken manure ($50/ton) and compost ($18/cubic yard). He took the pickup truck and trailer and got a load. Then we scooped it out onto the garden and spread it around.

4) till the area with a rototiller.
5) use railroad ties to edge the areas that are terraced/leveled
6) plant. It's raining this week, so it may be delayed. And we aren't going to plant the whole area this year. We need to practice growing things first.


Here's what it looks like so far.

Anyone with experience: advice is welcome.

2 comments:

Jen said...

Let me know if you get good tips. My garden is always a spindly sickly thing. However, I do believe in fertilizing, now, because I never have until last summer, and I had many more tomatoes than my usual two or three. Still not enough to recoup my investment, but an improvement!

AndreaM said...

Looks like you are going to have the biggest garden in all of Whittman! It's going to be a fun project!