Day 1 – Getting Started 12/28/2011

Today I cleared out the dead Basil in the front yard.  I also trimed up some of the other plants and cleaned out the garden area.  The peppers are still alive and have fruit on them so I didn't pick them.  They appear to still be ripening, so I guess they stay for now.  My bell pepper has lost most of its leaves, poor thing.  It is the tallest and so the sheet I put out at night when there is going to be a frost, hurts that plant the most.  Oh well.  It seems to be surviving so far. 

I also timed up the pomegranate tree in the back.  Then it was time to compost!  UGH!  I have a real love/hate relationship with composting.  I love the fact that I am feeding the earth and taking ok soil and making it great!  My plants grow alright, but I never see worms or any sign of life.  Now that I am using that area for composting, it is like digging for treasure!  I love seeing worms squirming out of my way as I dig.  Right now though it is hard.  You see, I just started composting in a new area in my garden.  It is quite big.  When I dug up this past summer's tomato plants, I just dug the garden up and put them back into the earth.  I originally hoped that it would be composted by spring, then I would plant there again.  I am thinking now though, that I will wait one year and really work that soil with compost.   Today though,  it all had to be dug up again for the new addition.  This is the part that I do not like!  I like digging for a little while, but I had to dig a lot and it gets to where it hurts.  The tomatoes that I buried a few weeks ago are still green and intact.  As I dug, the shovel would get snared on vines as I pulled, pushed and lifted.  I had to chop and dig and lift and haul...  I got a lot done and I think that it will probably all break down much faster now.  I look forward to seeing the results there that I see in last year's compost pile.  For now though, it is a lot of work. 

After trimming everything up and composting it all, I took stock of what I have.  I measured out my back yard, got out the graph paper and started laying it all out.  I have enough space to build four 5' x 8' planter boxes.   That will fit a lot of plants!  The downside, as I looked stuff up online, is that all of those boxes have to be filled with soil.  That get's expensive.  I may be planting directly in the earth this year.  That means tearing up the grass that is already there.  The grass will probably be a constant problem in the garden.  I will have to really look at stuff and figure out the best way to do this.  We will see....