Strategy For The New Year's Garden

The first step in the strategy for a better garden this year is to get more compost - from my compost bin and other sources - and to get a lot of aged chicken manure. And then I'm going to re-dig this garden up and get that clay soil all nice and crumbly. It was better by the end of summer because the top dressing of compost helped a bit, but it really still needed to be mixed into the dirt. I don't have time for all that double-digging, lasagna, and other soil treatments that I've read about. I'll dig as deep as I can and just mix in the good stuff. Ive done some work on this soil already and whatever else I do to it can only make the plants happier. I don't test the pH and all that. I suppose I should, but at this point, I know that this is bad soil - anything is going to improve it.

(I did see this cool LINK on how to run a test to see what kind of soil texture you have!)

I also know that I'm going to have to do something about the cold wind that whips right through this field from off the water on the other side of the sugar factory.  I'll put my cages and stakes in right away when I plant my tomatoes and then wrap some plastic around the cages. That should keep them warm until they can handle the cold. I'm also going to add fish heads, aspirin, crushed egg shells like Love Apple Farms writes about HERE. I don't know how anything grew in my garden at all last year. It must have been a miracle. Now when I look at it, all I see is bad soil.

I do love my garden though, so that probably helped. I really needed to do this. It has kept me sane.

I'll rotate my crops too. I'll be more mindful of spacing and companion planting.

The bugs are going to be a problem again - I can see that already. I have some peas and Calendulas that are still blooming. Ive found some spotted cucumber beetles on them already. We are having a dry, fairly warm winter, and these guys are not dying off. I'm pretty sure they helped kill my cucs with that mosaic virus. I plan to try growing some cucumber plants along side the house this summer. I'll put them in some Smart Pots ( or make my own) and cloche them until they take off. I hope this keeps the bugs at bay. I used to think those little green and black beetles  were cute like I used to think raccoons were cute. 

So the bottom line is that with some amending , better nutrient and bug fighting strategies, I'll get a lot more out of this project. I am bound and determined to make this work.

And I hope to install a drip irrigation system. They are not too costly. And since it looks like we are going into a major drought, I am already cutting back on my water consumption. I save the water from the shower in a big bucket while I wait for it to heat up. Its amazing how much water we waste.

These are some Golden Sweet peas that Ive got growing right now.  They taste ok. They are probably not going to get much higher than 4 feet. But I wanted to see how they would do. The flowers are fun to look at, if nothing else.