Sunday, February 5, 2012

Black dirt live again!

It's been drizzling here the past few days, which made today the perfect day to go dig up the hard clay soil, as the water makes it diggable. Yesterday I bought a hoe, peat moss, lime, high acid dirt (for planting blueberries and potatoes), low acid dirt (for covering the asparagus), and compost. Today I dug out the area which will be a long raised bed garden on the south side of my house, and another area out front which will be an asparagus bed.

My ground is clay, so next week I'm going to mix in compost and pre-moistened peat moss (after soaking it in water overnight so it doesn't wick all the moisture out of the soil) to improve the drainage, as otherwise the clay will hold too much water and be too dense and drown my seeds when I plant them in a few months. This morning I started loosening up the top layer of soil with a hoe and mixed in lime (to lower the acidity) and the leaf compost that's been sitting around all winter in a corner of the garden.

My seed collection for this year! Not pictured but also will be growing/planting: asparagus, strawberries, blueberries, onions, garlic, potatoes, rosemary, oregano and possibly lemons (if my tree decides to bloom this year)


Also next weekend I have plans to plant 2 blueberry bushes in the backyard that will eventually grow to be around 6 feet tall. And I'll be starting bell pepper and eggplant seeds indoors. And a few weeks later the lettuce and peas and onions will be going in the ground and i'll be starting basil seeds, and a few weeks after THAT will be carrots, and after that the frost season will be over and it'll totally be on!

Now I'm making about 2 gallons of chicken soup for our "stay home, be antisocial and watch the superbowl while eating tortellini soup" fest tonight (and lots of extra to freeze).

4 comments:

  1. For the record, she worked so hard outside today that she went to sleep at 7:50pm.

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  2. You are such an inspiration. I love reading your gardening updates.

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  3. BTW: if you haven't already, read Square Foot Gardening. I kept failing with vegetables until I read that.

    Way less back breaking work than "improving soil" and a few other techniques.

    And vegetable gardening in South Florida (Zones 10A, 10B, and 11) is a strange experience to begin with.

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  4. AE, have you considered getting seeds from a company that sells heirloom variety, open-pollinated seeds? That way you can save seeds for next year and know that what you plant will be pretty much what you got last year. Otherwise you'll get the full Punnett Square. Favorites are Seeds of Change and Territorial Seed. Mind you, Territorial Seed does sell some grafted vegetables. Very treif.

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