The garden is coming along. But it’s raining today! This is, by all local accounts, a very late spring. That we’re getting rains this late in the spring is very unusual. Anyway…
Here’s where things were on May 9:
It had just been tilled with the tractor. Nice puffy dirt! All the weeds chewed up. I moved a few wheelbarrows full of dirt around to try to level it out a bit; so water wouldn’t gather too much. Then it was setting out the drip lines from last year’s garden by mostly just laying them out. We’ll plant things where the drip points are. Much easier than trying to reconfigure the lines! Then setup fences for the tomatoes and the beans/peas. Sorta looked like this:
Great to walk around in all that soft soil. It’ll get packed down in time. A couple yards of composted chicken manure (under the grey tarp) have been tilled in, as well as having a pile of it to add in with the plants when they’re set out.
In the meantime, seedlings are started. Corn, peas, squash (kuri, kabocha, pumpkin, pattypan). Starter plants from stores are planted; tomatoes: red cherry, orange cherry, yellow pear, asian blacks; eggplants, cucumbers, and a couple winter squash from a local charity sale. The strawberry box is made and setup and filled with creek dirt mixed with compost. It now has strawberries (two kinds from a nursery in Tomales), sweet onions, carrots and two kinds of beets planted.
I want to get some bales of straw and spread it around thickly for weed-control mulching. Some cardboard from Costco stocking shelves to help control weeds, too.
There’s a new automatic drip control installed with 5 valves. So far, no need to program it – what with the rain continuing. But it’ll be needed when summer finally gets going. I hope this doesn’t mean that fall will arrive early!
It’s going to be a great garden!