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Have you ever had a great idea that just never seemed to pan out? Well, that’s what happened this spring with my ideas for Charley’s garden. We were going to plant a few plants of everything and I was going to video it to show everyone how to do it.
Alas, it was not meant to be. It rained for 6 weeks straight so that we were unable to plow the garden properly. We were also really busy with shipping plants at the greenhouses that we may not have had time anyway.
Charley finally got his corn planted a couple of weeks ago and his purple hull peas planted earlier this week. He also planted some watermelons today. Unfortunately, my duties at the greenhouses prevented me from being able to get some video of the planting.
Even though we didn’t get the garden I wanted planted, we should still be able to get some good content for you. Several of my kin and neighbors did get their gardens planted so we will be visiting them and asking a lot of questions.
To introduce one of the neighbors, here’s a quick video of them planting some squash seed. They used a plow to furrow up the garden and fertilized and planted by hand.
We’ve been real busy here on the farm shipping out Charley’s Veggies Plants so we haven’t had much time to get the garden ready. Didn’t matter much anyway. It has been so wet that the ground is just now starting to dry out. Charley and Paul (Charley’s brother) are finally getting to plow up the garden again today. Hopefully we can get the ground tilled up good and get some veggies planted here in the next week or so.
Veggie sales this year are through the roof. It seems like everyone is planting a garden this year which is a good thing, I think. Hopefully, we can use this blog to help all you gardening greenhorns to have a productive and tasty garden.
Check back as often as you can. We will be adding more how-to’s as we start planting.
-JP
I made a quick trip down the road yesterday and as I was driving it seemed that every where I looked there were people working in their yard or tilling up their garden plots. Then I got back to the farm and Dad (Charley) said that he was going to go plow for a while. I told him that was great and that I wanted to get some video of it for out blog. I also ask Dad if he would sit down and do a quick Q&A interview and he agreed as long as it wasn’t on video. So I will get that done soon.
Based on what Charley and everyone else is doing, now is when you want to start getting you garden ready for planting. Some of you, like Lacey, probably have already done some of that. You want the soil turned and loose. Turned basically means you want to flip the soil so that the dirt that was underneath is now on top. You can do that with a shovel, tiller or tractor depending on how much garden you have and how energetic you are. Be sure to remove large clumps of grass, roots and rocks.
One thing you need to realize is that you will have to do this several times until you plant to keep the soil loose. So don’t be surprised when we tell you later that you need to till the garden again. Like Lacey said in an earlier post, when you till is a good time to work in compost and other organic materials that can help keep the soil loose. Again, like Lacey mentioned, you can take a sample of soil to your county extension office and have them send it off for analysis to determine if there are any additives that need to be added to your soil. I recommend having your soil tested if this is your first garden so that you will have a base line to start at.
Plus here is a look at our crazy temperatures this week courtesy of the MAX5 Weather blog.
