donkey herder, fowl friendAlmost ready to plant my patch of flour #corn! I spent a couple of hours over a couple of days running the sprinkler here, to get the ground nice and damp. The floppy fence netting arrived today, and I’ve got a piece of bird netting to go over the top. It was time to break up some rows!
The #broadfork finally had a chance to shine, and it really made short work of this. I spent no more than 45 minutes digging this 12x20 patch! I’ll pay tomorrow, but not nearly as much as if I’d tried to hoe.
This was mature sod over local clay two years ago. Last year, I forgot that I already bought seed potatoes, not once but twice, so I needed more space stat. I smothered the grass with cardboard, held the cardboard down with 12 honest inches of not-really-composted horse manure and stall bedding. Then I added some little mounds of bagged potting soil and planted my extra (double extra) potatoes. The plants grew fine, but little worms migrated up from the grass roots and made tracks in the tubers - very sad.
So I spent the fall and winter encouraging the chickens to eat there. They’ve sterilized and fertilized the soil really well! The ground had just started getting some weeds, and the grass was trying to creep back in from the uphill side, but the bed was largely grass free.
There’s much less topsoil at the top of the bed, of course. I spent extra time breaking up the clay on the first few rows, and I’ll see if I can find some finished #compost to add to them, too.
#gardening
The #broadfork finally had a chance to shine, and it really made short work of this. I spent no more than 45 minutes digging this 12x20 patch! I’ll pay tomorrow, but not nearly as much as if I’d tried to hoe.
This was mature sod over local clay two years ago. Last year, I forgot that I already bought seed potatoes, not once but twice, so I needed more space stat. I smothered the grass with cardboard, held the cardboard down with 12 honest inches of not-really-composted horse manure and stall bedding. Then I added some little mounds of bagged potting soil and planted my extra (double extra) potatoes. The plants grew fine, but little worms migrated up from the grass roots and made tracks in the tubers - very sad.
So I spent the fall and winter encouraging the chickens to eat there. They’ve sterilized and fertilized the soil really well! The ground had just started getting some weeds, and the grass was trying to creep back in from the uphill side, but the bed was largely grass free.
There’s much less topsoil at the top of the bed, of course. I spent extra time breaking up the clay on the first few rows, and I’ll see if I can find some finished #compost to add to them, too.
#gardening
Hesperalis
HumToTable