When we moved to our land a year ago last January. I had several false starts getting a garden in. The problem was we had so many projects going, with getting chickens going & learning about raising goats, as well as starting with puppy livestock guardian dogs, we just didn't have energy to start a garden from scratch.
About a month ago I bought 2 bunches of onion sets at the feed store. A couple days later I got the digging fork out & started digging. DH took over & we now have a plot that is about 14X14'. 2 weeks ago we finally got the onion sets in the ground, as well some cold weather veggies I got at Wal-Mart (broccoli, cauliflower, & cabbage). I also had some brussel sprouts, that I started last year in long pots. They never got big enough to produce last year. But, now seem to be putting on height. I'm not sure if they will produce, this year, or put on seed heads. But decided to put them in the ground too.
Another trip to Wal-Mart we got some herbs. I thought one pot was chives. But when I got them to plant yesterday, I learned they were Leeks. So, instead of a row of loosely clumped chives, we had to plant each individual thin plant.
I poked a hole with a piece of 1" dowel & DH put the ruling plant & firmed the soil. We ended up with 3-14' rows (spaced 4-5").
We know we have rabbits & could see evidence of nibbling. But, until yesterday, we hadn't put our fence up.
Yesterday after I had planted several rows of Collard & Red Russian Kale seeds, we finally put T-Posts in the ground & put up 2X4" welded wire fence. Since our rabbits around here all seem to be tiny (2"wide X 5" long) we also needed 2' chicken wire around the bottom. We are planning to make the garden a lot bigger, so this fence is temporary, being attached with zip ties.
As I said previously, we are planning to get some local bio-solids compost. I can't find it now, but I think someone cautioned about heavy metals in bio-solids compost. I called the company near us & the owner told me "minimum standards" is 41ppm. Theirs is 3ppm & they are able to call it organic. I was originally told it would be $10/TON. But that was LARGE quantities (100+ tons). By the cubic yard it is $35/yd. We can get 10 ton dump truck loads for $25/TON.
That's still an awesome price!
