Feeling Overwhelmed

[mudda]

I have always wanted to live on a farm, and about a year ago we moved from AZ to Il. We now have five acres. Most of it is planted in hay. We had a good neighbor turn over a good portion of it for our garden (about 1500 feet). Now I'm not sure what to do next. It has been raining a lot, and the gound is too wet to till. We don't have a huge amount of $ to spend on ammendments, but it looks pretty bland, just dirt, but a lot of worms. I have a ton of heirloom tomato plants started, and am anxious to get them in the ground.
Any advice??

 

[DrakeMaiden]

Do any of your neighbors keep horses, cows, or goats? See if any of them have more manure than they can use. Try to get some that has aged at least a few months in a pile.

 

[OaklandCityFarmer]

Wow, that's quite a move! Sounds like fun though.

Lots of worms usually mean good soil aeration and enough organic matter for them to stay and eat. That's a good start.

You might want to look into a fast growing cover crop. Tomatoes love hairy vetch and you could get a lot of seed for relatively cheap. Sow the seed, let it grow, right before you're going to plant tomatoes cut it down to about 8 inches and make holes for the tomatoes. Leaving the vetch around the tomatoes makes a living mulch and the hairy vetch provide much need nitrogen for the soil.

Other cover crops can be used for a variety of different reasons, bringing nitrogen to the soil, breaking up clay soils, etc. Look into them.

Using layers of newspaper as mulch is a cheap and effective way or retaining moisture in the garden.

To help you start seeds you can even construct a very inexpensive greenhouse out of PVC and plastic.

There are tons of stuff. As I remember I'll add.

 

[mudda]

Thank you so much. I know the hay grows well, so I figured it couldn't be too bad.

 

[Beekissed]

I think you will be surprised how fertile it already is! If you have a lot of worms, its a good sign....they have to eat something! I, myself, am getting antsy over the wet weather, as I have seedlings that are getting leggy and need to be put in the ground! I have to tell myself, "In God's time, not mine!"

Manure is always a good and cheap (or free!) soil amendment for folks with no money.

I would try to be patient, your time will come. Its just so hard to wait, isn't it? You can start feeling overwhelmed when you start harvesting that huge tomato crop!!!