Complete

Completed garden 2014

Working by myself this year, the garden was completed in 3 days of maybe 4 hours a day??? Grant it I had three little helpers who would dig up my beds while I was making them, trample what laid, ect. This garden is roughly 20 feet by 10 feet. My point.....lasagna gardening, aka, sheet composting works. This is something a feeble person could do on a smaller scale.

I finished cleaning out my compost bins and transferred compost from one bin back to this main bin. One thing I learned.....air keeps compost from smelling! My children had stuffed some compost in a trashcan we had by the garden. It rained and year later, I have dumped it out. It reeked so bad. In case you don't know. I don't like barnyard smell. When we first had our chickens and only one child. I cleaned out their wood shavings twice a day.

Completed compost pile

Planting List

One of the aspects of gardening that can be attempted indoors is the plotting and charting of your garden. Below is a plan for my garden this year. Thanks to my mother, for the suggestion.

Want to Grow                                            Will Grow                                          When to Grow
Tomatoes                                                  Peas                                                     Spring/Fall
Cucumbers                                               Lettuce                                                 Spring/Fall
Corn                                                         Spinach                                                Spring/Fall
Squash                                                     Carrots                                                  Spring/Fall
Carrots                                                      Bell Pepper                                          Summer
Zuchini                                                     Tomatoes                                              Summer
Lettuce, Romaine                                     Basil                                   
Spinach                                                     Dill
Brussel Sprouts
Potatoes
Garlic
Onion
Bell Pepper
Carrots
Peas
Green Beans
Oregano
Basil

Busy

With the beautiful weather, things have been busy around here.

 After all the running around Thursday, only the side shrubs were taken care of. I learned a lesson in
the process. Originally, I started with the following steps:

1. Lay down paper bags over last year's pine needles to prevent weeds.
2. Lay down pine needles at least an inch deep.....(all I had available from our property).
3. Hoe a line the width of the hoe in front of the mulch.
4. Sprinkle baking soda over the exposed dirt and water.

I've heard mixed reviews about baking soda preventing weeds and other sites saying it sweetens tomatoes.....so I'm not sure how well it will work.

Step 4 Complete Baking Soda

Step 3 Complete: Pine Shavings

"Beauty for Ashes"

"To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified ." ~ Isaiah 61:3

If you have heard the phrase, perhaps you realize where I am headed with this post. Ashes.....how I love ashes. If you study the soil's ph (level of acidity versus alkalinity), you will realize ashes are an integral part of cultivating beauty in a garden.

Here is our process. We pick up fallen limbs. We chop up fallen trees. We gather pruned limbs of branches that have died on a tree. I remove any nails, metal ect. from the burn pile. The dead, dry trees are burned. After the ashes are cooled, it is time to wheel the wheel barrel over and fill it with the ashes. If they are too light, I mist the ashes so they don't blow in the wind. I add this layer to the middle of the layering process. For the past two years, this method has brought greener leaves to my plants.

Attempt 1 for "Start Your Garden"

I mentioned a few days ago an article discussing why we simply do not have the luxury to delay attempting a home garden. (I did not realize how sporadic my thought process and life in general is until I tried writing it down in blog posts!) For these reasons, I am simply going to blog the first serious attempt over the next few months.

baking soda to prevent weeds

This month: February.....the first two weeks I simply procrastinated. Spring is around the corner and I simply cannot procrastinate! First plans up for this weekend is to the burn the tree that fell over in the summer/fall storms. I am excited. I use the ashes from the trees and limbs in our yard for the garden. (a mulch machine is on my wish list) .....there is one little problem. We use the burn pit for everything. Yup, I have to clear out all the metal and things that don't burn from the pit so that I can have sweet, wood ashes.
The tasks needing completion before spring were detailed in the previous post It's the playbook, right?  there are minor deviations in the list:

1. burn fallen limbs and trees
2. weed dead weeds from gardens
3. hoe edges of garden
4. cover edges of garden with baking soda to prevent grass and weeds (this is an experiment)
5. mulch garden beds
6. clean out compost piles
7. prune bushes and trees
8. mulch trees

Hopefully in the next few posts I can detail each process.

Seize the moment

There are days in the winter where the temperature is warmer than normal. Seize the opportunity. If you work and cannot head outdoors, defeat the winter blues preparing indoors for spring planting. I seized the moment yesterday to lay out my soil. I normally prep my soil in fall so that it has 6 months to decompose. This year, my compost piles have been sitting for over a year so I had the luxury to put it off until the end of winter.

• Come up with a planting schedule
• Make a list of veggies you eat regularly
• Order the list of veggies
• plan your planting location
• assess the soil
• schedule your planting season into your calendar

Step One

"Time to get serious!" I stumbled across an article this morning about stating this is your year to garden. It was a wake-up call to say the least. For that reason, I am going to return to the original intent of this blog. Informing you through pictures, how to grow a garden. From what I understand NC lives in zone 7b. If you live in zone 7b, never started a garden, and are interested. Follow along. I am not promising success. I am encouraging effort and through our efforts we will come away with personal experience and knowledge about our zone climate.
Today is supposed to be beautiful. NC is notorious for their late frost, in my opinion. I have not remember a single Easter Sunday as long as I've been up here, (10 years, give or take) that was not cold and cloudy. From that day forward, it warms up quickly. What happens while we wait to plant outdoors? We prepare the soil and plant indoors!

Step 1: soil prep and plant preparations.
A sweet lady who is in her 70s, has taken me under her wing. I am so thankful and excited that she is sharing her gardening tips for NC. This state's weather puzzles me to no end! Her advice, "Don't plant anything outdoors before the last frost. The first plants usually planted during this time of year are peas, onions, lettuce, and potatoes." So let's take her advice to heart. 

•  Let's look at the seed packets. 
• Determine what seeds in your climate can be planted earliest.
• Find a gardener in the area to glean experienced wisdom.

This year I am going to be trying my hand at potted gardening, outdoor gardening, and indoor gardening.

Black Gold

Black Gold

My biggest dream is to create my own soil from the land. A huge circle is what I want to create. I am no where near my dream, but this pile represents 3 years of planned decomposition. The first year it started with buying at the store peat moss, using newspaper, pine needles from the in-laws land, and that was about it. The second year was quite bountiful. The first layers was cardboard followed by, chicken manure, grass clippings, decomposed leaves, pine needles, wood ashes, wood chips, the previous year's soil, and epsom salt.....pretty much the same mixture the third year will crushed egg shells added to the pile. My dream list for rich soil would be an even mixture of brown and green decomposition. My dream list would be as follows:

• Animal manure
• Fruits and Vegetables
• Leaves
• Grass clippings
• Epsom Salt
• Wood ashes
• Wood chips
• Pine needles
• Egg shells crushed
• Worm tea
• Worm soil

The biggest failure that keeps recurring is a thick enough ground work for the bins so that grass roots and weeds do not grow up in the pile.