Friday, January 25, 2008

Worms and Dirt

So Ryan and I have tried to get the garden planned, without ACTUALLY going outside where it is frigid. I have my list of what we will be growing, and it looks like there will be three grow areas, the main garden in the back that we need to fence and turn, a side garden and a blueberry patch. The main garden needs to be fenced and turned, and there we will grow two kinds of tomatoes, two kinds of peppers, snow peas, green beans, yellow squash, zucchini, eggplant, pickling and slicing cucumbers, carrots and two types of lettuce. The side garden will be where we experiment with pie pumpkins, butternut and acorn squash. The area in from of the playroom will become the blueberry patch.

To grow this much in an organic way, we need to get our composting back on track. I am now shopping for a new compost bin for closer to the house, where I can throw the scraps. Ryan also built a bin at the top of the hill out back, and he is going to put a door on it so we can have a second bin, that one will be where most clippings and leaves go. I will also purchase worms for that bin, but the one down by the house will not be a worm based system. I also need to talk to Haven's riding teacher about getting some....ahem...manure for the garden. I need to get that into the garden about a month before planting. We will till the garden, lay the manure with a layer of newspaper on top and then a layer of compost. It will get watered daily, and when it come time to plant, we will have a rich soil to work with.

Even as cold as it is, we have to look forward to spring. By March we need the garden built and the soil working, so that plantings can happen in April. By late June we will be enjoying all that our hard work has given us.

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