A Month Earlier than last year.

Well I borrowed a tiller from my wife's grandfather again, but did it more than a month earlier than last year. The grass is starting to green up here now but has yet to really start growing. I thought if I turned over the garden spot earlier I might be able to till again later in the year before planting the bulk of my veggies. Hopefully this will save me from a lot of the hand weeding that I had to do last year. Besides the work that goes into a garden anyway, I'm a full time student, I have a full time job and my daughter will be turning two in May. If left alone the two year old would be more than I could handle, but my wife is my greatest support! She works days and I work evenings so we don't have to pay for day care. Rambling rambling, it's a lot of work is the point.

I didn't take pictures today, but I'll edit this post later to add them when I get 'em.

I had read on the Texas A&M horticulture website that if you are left in the spring with a pile of leaves that have not been properly composted they make a fine soil treatment simply raked out across the garden and plowed under. I am trying this idea this year and I was amazed to see all those leaves disappear. I had a pile that I would guess could have easily filled 20+ trash bags, and I spread them over my spot which is 16' X 45' and I can barely see them now.

well I have high hopes for the garden and I've added a number of new plants and ideas, but I will have even less time to make it happen so hopefully I'm able to work smarter not harder.

Bushes and Grapes

Got out in the wet sloppy mud today, I wish I had the Garden tilled under already, but no such luck with this unusually wet winter we're having in North Texas. I decided to try my hand at a few new things this year and they needed to be in the ground, so I planted 2 blueberry bushes and 6 black berry, along with 2 grapevines. I plan to build an arbor for the grapes but I have a bit of time to get it done.

I had heard that Blue Berries liked acidic soil, but for a lack of peat moss, I dug my holes about 4 times bigger than I needed and turned leaves into the soil that I raked up over the yard back in the fall. If the weather was nicer I would have taken pictures of the whole process, sadly I didn't. I did take one before picture however, but I don't have it up yet. I hope to keep up with the blog a bit better this year than last... we'll just have to see.