Spring 2008 Garden Update

Spring is creeping up on us here in Georgia and a lot of changes are happening around here. Most of the changes will have to do with the garden this year. We were lucky enough to be able to afford a tiller this year. It is just a small tiller which is great because I can use it myself (after I get Phil to start it). So for once I didn�t have to do all that hand digging which I was so not looking forward to doing and the soil is much better off as well. The tiller was also taken into the chicken pen where it dug up the soil there so I could remove it, via a new wheelbarrow, down to the lower garden for fertilizer.

I also decided I was not going to deal with the constant problems of watering the lower garden this year so I bought two soaker hoses. Soaker hoses turned out to be a lot harder to put down than I expected. They don�t just roll out and lie flat for you. I don�t know how anyone else does it but mine are held down with large rocks in key places (those that wouldn�t stay down where I put them).

The weeds were another issue I had to deal with last year. They pretty much took over the garden until I finally gave up. Not this year! On top of the soaker hoses we put the black plastic with the holes for the water to seep through. This also turned out to be a lot of work and more rocks but it is finally covering the lower garden and the raised bed in the back yard.

Speaking of the raised bed, this year it is being used to grow onions, kale, lettuce and several herbs. The onions I got free from my job at a restaurant here. After they use the green onions they were just throwing the bulb end away. So I took them all home and they are growing great in the raised bed.

Onions were not the only things I got from work, there are also three pineapple tops trying to root in water. I have not had much luck with pineapple tops before but I keep trying.

As for flowers I have gone a bit overboard. I am trying to make the back yard a pretty and nice place to sit and spend time and that takes lots of flowers. This is the excuse I am using anyway for buying so many petunias, roses, solar lights, a fountain etc. this year. The wild violets are helping as they have sprouted all over the yard again this year. I have already done one picking for the first batch of violet jelly this year and there are still plenty of violet flowers left to make the yard look pretty.

This is just the start of my gardening here. I also would like to get some of that chicken pen manure up to the upper garden and get it tilled. It will not have the benefit of soaker hoses but it will get the black plastic. Plus the strawberry bed is completely overgrown. I think I am going to remove everything from it, till it and then replant with fresh strawberry plants. I also would like to get more blueberry bushes planted but so far haven�t seen any for sale here yet.

It has been a lot of work and the work will continue but I am hoping for and looking forward to a much better harvest this year.

Rebecca Whitford