grow a great garden this year

My sister-in-law and I shoveled shi… horse poop… this weekend and loaded two large barrows of manure. We then pushed the loaded wheelbarrow out the garden and dumped it… It literally took both of us grabbing one handle of the barrow to get it out to the garden… Poop is heavy!

I just keep telling myself how wonderful the garden will be…!

Well, I sat down last night and filled out order forms for the seeds that I would like to purchase through various seed catalogues.

My plan was to do a cost comparison and ultimately order all of my seeds from a single source or to buy them locally if mail order was cost prohibitive.

Turns out the catalogues ended up being very similarly priced overall (the final totals were all within $5 of each other). Now I just need to compare those prices to local outlets and then make a purchasing decision.

Sometimes it is a pain to be so analytical, but this is kind of fun, and has allowed me to feel like I’m moving in the direction of a great garden…

Ah, delusions!

I started drooling through this year’s seed catalogues. I’m at a bit of a loss.

First, I adore these catalogues – they are so full of promise! But the cost is more than what I can get at WalMart or TSC or the local hardware store. My thought is, the seeds from the catalogues are of a higher quality and more certain to make a good plant / veggie / etc.

Sigh. So I’m trying to decide… drool and order – or – drool and wait to shop at WalMart… sigh.

I got a free packet of carrot seeds from “Plant a Row for the Hungry” in the mail this last week.

I’ve never grown carrots (or any other root plant, for that matter) and am excited to give this a go. Of course, I’ll be donating more than just some carrots this year, but it is a nice start.

http://www.gardenwriters.org/Par/

Well, this is the garden plot for this Spring.

Last year, I planted at the other end and didn’t do so hot. Turns out (from the previous occupants) that the garden plot flooded and then stood under water for a very long time about 2 – 3 years ago. Leached all the goodies out of the soil. Oh.

so, this year, we are piling the barn waste at the other end of the garden (where the asparagus grows so nicely). We’ll let the nutrients leach back into the soil and then till everything down and in. I want to do raised beds, too… so there will be a great filler base. And, it is horse and goat poo, so it doesn’t get as “hot” as cow manure and tends not to “burn” the plants. And of course, the chickens root and scratch and are doing their part.

Sigh… It already feels like Spring some days (in January! in Indiana! What?!?), but we know that we still have a couple months to make it through…

I’m excited for what I consider the “new year”... Spring! Glorious Spring!

Icky but true.

We are piling manure from the barn yard and stable in the end of the garden plot that we will be planting in the Spring.

In addition to the general fertilizing benefits, the chickens have discovered where we are dumping the stuff and have starting marching out there in their very officious chicken way and scratching around in the old hay and offal. This is a major beneit.

1 – chicken poo is a very good fertilizer
2 – they will pick the seeds out of the horse poo (yum, how do you get your eggs so tasty! ew!), preventing a lot of oats, etc from taking root in the Spring
3 – their scratching helps distribute the stuff, resulting in less back breaking labor for us later on

All in all, we are laying the groundwork for a great garden this year…!