How do you start a new garden plot?

[seedcorn]

Ok. Not sure I understand all you typed. I tilled up grass to make a new garden. Fought grasses for years. I’d round up the area first and kill all the grass. (I know some are wanting to tar/feather me)

I’d coat area with muck, then till about 3”-6” deep. (Corn will love the muck, some of the others-especially root crops-not so much.)

Use straw to mulch plants so it would cut weeding significantly. Otherwise, weeds will take area back and you will be done. Good luck-not that you can’t be successful but sounds like you will need to keep yourself motivated. Don’t we all?

 

[Beekissed]

I'm betting you have access to a lot of hay. Just cover that spot with your muck and a very thick layer of hay~the older, mulch kind of hay is even better~say a foot or more thick. I'd do it now so the rains can start the composting process for you.

By the time it's time to plant, you should be able to just plant in your muck, tuck the hay back around it and let nature happen. Got hay sprouting anywhere? Just plop a thick flake of hay down on it and smother it.

By this time next year, after adding more hay to the plot before winter, you should have a very rich, very easy to dig into garden plot wherein you just reapply your hay mulch each season to smother weeds and retain moisture.

The problem with deep plowing, then discing, is that you turn in your good layer of topsoil...and you'll be wanting that. So, just don't plow or till. Add your muck, cover it with hay and keep building that topsoil.

 

[secuono]

I'm betting you have access to a lot of hay. Just cover that spot with your muck and a very thick layer of hay~the older, mulch kind of hay is even better~say a foot or more thick. I'd do it now so the rains can start the composting process for you.

By the time it's time to plant, you should be able to just plant in your muck, tuck the hay back around it and let nature happen. Got hay sprouting anywhere? Just plop a thick flake of hay down on it and smother it.

By this time next year, after adding more hay to the plot before winter, you should have a very rich, very easy to dig into garden plot wherein you just reapply your hay mulch each season to smother weeds and retain moisture.

The problem with deep plowing, then discing, is that you turn in your good layer of topsoil...and you'll be wanting that. So, just don't plow or till. Add your muck, cover it with hay and keep building that topsoil.

Can't do that, it's by the barn, where the horses live. Muck needs to be removed either way, as its causing barn to flood. And I have no extra or waste hay, as I feed year round and fat ponies who gobble everything except actually bad bits of plant here n there.

 

[Beekissed]

Can't do that, it's by the barn, where the horses live. Muck needs to be removed either way, as its causing barn to flood. And I have no extra or waste hay, as I feed year round and fat ponies who gobble everything except actually bad bits of plant here n there.

That's when you buy or obtain for free mulch hay from your farming neighbors... I can often get it free or $10 a round bale and then just roll it out on the garden.

If you are putting a garden by the barn where the horses live, a fence is in your future anyway.

 

[secuono]

That's when you buy or obtain for free mulch hay from your farming neighbors... I can often get it free or $10 a round bale and then just roll it out on the garden.

If you are putting a garden by the barn where the horses live, a fence is in your future anyway.

No, that is where the muck currently is. Sorry, I misread your second sentence.

 

[digitS']

When I turned a field of pine and fir stumps into a garden (after a tractor pushed the stumps outta the way), I had low expectations for the fertility and productivity of the ground. What I was reading then said that it would take about 3+ years of gardening to get where I was wanting to go. With that experience and several others since, I think that it was about right.

At 120' by 170', this was my garden and ground for fruit trees. Even at first, I assigned some of the ground for animal feed so my garden of annuals was L-shaped, 50' by 200'. The second year it was 50' by 150'; third year, 50' by 100'. Each year, I lost ground for more livestock feed while growing more veggies in smaller gardens. Yay!!

I remember reading that turnips grow well on new ground. I thought, if that's so, maybe I will have extra for the critters. Boy, was that right! It took me over 30 years before I was willing to grow turnips again for myself .

Everything else was really limited, at first. Gardens of annual vegetables are ecosystems. We are admonished to rotate crops and build soil fertility. Sure. But, these combinations of plants have been growing together for centuries. The vegetable environments are quite a bit different from the evergreen forest that the loggers had mostly removed before I got there with the beans, corn, squash, and turnips!

About that manure, Dad used to drag a lot of manure out of the corral and load it on the manure spreader and drive that contraption around a hay field. One year, he just used the scraper blade to spread it in a fairly small area, then plow and plant a garden. I remember how very green all the plants were!

Then, the soil dried so we turned in the irrigation water. Killed dang near everything!! The dehydrated little plants sucked in that water loaded with manure and that was the last of the story. Way too much of a good thing.

Steve

 

[Collector]

We are going on our third year with this new garden. We have heavy clay soil to work with here. We just tilled in the sod then garden raked the entire plot raking out as mush sod chunks as possible. We added bio char the first year and tilled it in as deep as possible. Then we planted our rows and removed anymore sod chunks that were raked up. After the plants were up a few inches we put down the drip irrigation and straw mulched heavy. That really kept the weeds down and the soil moist and soft for the plants to grow. At end of season we just tilled the straw in and then aged manure and sawdust from a local stable over that and tilled (yes I am a tiller of the earth) it in.
Last year instead of mulching with straw I was able to get my hands on some fine bark mulch and put a 3”-4” layer over 80% of the garden the rest was straw mulch, this year will be straw also. Besides burning it with to much manure compost I had a white fly nightmare one year with to much on garden. The larvae ate all of our turnips and infested other root crops so be on the lookout or have chicken go thru it first.
We enjoy gardening the old school traditional way, even though it may not be the most efficient method. Good luck with your gardening adventures, sounds like you have everything you need to have a awesome traditional garden.

 

[ducks4you]

Let me suggest what my DD's will do this Spring. Mark the corners of your garden with anything that is visible, spray paint, 4 spots, so that you know where they are. Dedicate a Saturday to taking pictures at 8 AM, 10 AM, 12noon, 2 PM, and then 4 PM. Download to your computer and REALLY look to see how much light you really have during the day at this location. If you have any places that don't get much light, you may be able to grow cool season vegetables THERE in the middle of the summer. Those shady spots will be very hard to grow warm season full season vegetables.
Have you thought about "raising the crowns" on the trees there? I did that to all of my pine trees, but it was bc the lower limbs were in the way of mowing, etc. Still, there will be more light underneath them this year.
Just some thoughts...

 

[secuono]

Red is space needed to turn trailer around.
Orange is hill that could be hacked out some to give more trailer space.
Greenhouse is a cart shed now, they take way too much work to be worth it. It will be moved between the fence and last tree.
Coop will be moved between the last two trees.
Old bucket garden, old greenhouse spot and fencing will be cleared out.

Black is roughly where snow/ice is slow to melt because of tree shade.
Green is where there is space for the garden.
Would be nice to get rid of that sycamore tree, since its half dead and dropping limbs, but that's expensive. So it does cause a little shade.

 

[Beekissed]

How steep is your hill? Looks like it may be a good place to have a garden that has good drainage and is also out in the sun more? Or is it not a big enough space or too steep for that there?

That big tree by your garden may present a problem if it's located where the sun will have to shine through it to reach your soil. Small garden, big tree casting lots of shade...though I've seen folks grow some nifty little gardens in the shade, so it may not be too bad.

I get shade on one end of my garden in the evenings when the sun is the most hot and that's where I plant cool weather crops. They get morning sun and evening shade and that seems to work out well.