Garden 2017 is under way
Monday’s beautiful weather provided the perfect opportunity to get outside and do a bit of work in the garden. After a relatively warm and wet winter our six raised beds had experienced more than their fair share of weed growth. First item of business was pulling some of the bigger weeds and cleaning out the sticks that had fallen in the recent storms. After making sure that the beds were relatively clear, I began double digging. Commercially packaged cow manure was mixed in with the soil as I went.
My basic gardening strategy is a modified version of Mel Bartholomew’s square foot gardening. When I first started gardening seriously seven years ago, I borrowed the 1970’s version of his book from our local public library. His step by step strategy helped me when I was a complete beginner. While his system does not work for everyone, I personally find grid squares easier to manage than long rows of vegetables. It’s purely psychological, but for some reason it is less intimidating to me to go weed a small box than a long walkway between rows of tomatoes.
My modifications to his system are that I use bottomless boxes and predominantly home made compost in lieu of his trademark vermiculite based Mel’s Mix. While the results might have been better with the recommended mixture, the financial cost was simply too high for me to consider. Bottomless boxes allowed me to slowly improve our native soil with compost and let the plant roots grow deeper. Our boxes were initially filled with a combination of commercial potting soil, compost from the Cape Girardeau city compost pile, and the generous offerings of a local horse farmer. Each year they receive more compost made from decayed yard waste and kitchen scraps. Commercial compost is used whenever necessary to make up for a shortfall in compost volume.
The first round of planting was a variety of early spring vegetables that can handle colder temperatures. Even though the weather was in the mid-seventies during the afternoon, the rest of the week is scheduled to get chilly again. Predictable spring weather is still several weeks away. Radishes, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, and Swiss chard are hardy vegetables that can handle these sorts of temperatures and are an easy way to get the garden off to a good start. More than anything, it felt good to get some dirt under my fingernails for the first time all year.
