Gardening seasons begins: making a garden bed

Today was in the 50s, and by Monday it will be 70 degrees. I am excited, because I imagine I’ll be outside all day the next three days, completing my exterior finish earthen plaster on my house, and doing more gardening work.

I have just barely begun with gardening. Today I hauled three wheelbarrows full of manure from our neighbor’s land to add to a new garden bed I am making. (It’s a long haul from the next door pasture… I can’t do many more than three runs like that.)

I plan on doing extensive sheet mulching. For this first bed (which will be more like three keyhole beds, side by side), I laid down one layer of cardboard directly on top of the ground, and soaked the cardboard before I laid down the manure. The manure is actually a tiny bit frozen still, so tomorrow I will break up the bigger pieces, and lay down a foot of straw. After that, I’ll add some topsoil, and then a dash more of straw.

I’m not sure what I’ll be planting in this bed yet. I haven’t bought any seeds, in hopes that I will be able to score free seeds and starts from folks around here. (Usually people end up giving away lots of extra seedlings when the time comes.)

This bed and the other two in the front of my house will be devoted to annuals — eventually, I will plant perennial vegetables in the rear garden.

I am toying with the idea of starting a gardening/permaculture blog to document my food-growing exploits. I think as soon as I have a name for it I’ll be more inspired to start it. My gardening experience is limited, so this blog would detail my experiences learning to grow food.

Note: Please find all of my cob building related content at my new blog, The Year of Mud: Building a cob house. Thanks! See you there!

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