When do you start?

[secuono]

It's so darn cold and windy, I want to do something with the garden so when March comes around, I won't be scrambling and doing everything on top of each other. I'm trying to kill off all the grass, remove the wood from the raised beds of last year and turn the whole side of the yard into a garden. The wood will be reused to line the fence and walkways so dirt won't go everywhere. But it's so cold and windy, ground is sometimes frozen. I'm wearing two pairs of pants, shirt, hoody and a big coat just to keep from shivering to bits while I feed/water the critters. I can't imagine digging in all that, I'd sweat and then freeze.
When do you guys start messing around with your gardens?

 

[Mickey328]

As soon as we can, and it never seems soon enough, LOL. Like most of us, as soon as the days start getting longer and winter seems to be loosening its grip, I'm ready. We solved some of our prep this year by turning the chickens loose on the garden after harvest last fall. All winter we've been throwing scraps and stuff in there and they've been scratching and digging and fertilizing, LOL. We'll move them off in about a month to let it rest before planting. We usually plant here about Memorial day...don't usually get frost that late, but it can happen. In the meantime, we're busy drawing up plans about where we're going to put things (we're growing things this year that we haven't before) and working on other projects like the rabbitry and a pergola sort of thing on the deck. I went through my seeds last night, sorting the packages into bunches according to the dates I need to start them, and will get the indoor area set up for all that over the next few days.

Spring is such a hopeful time; a time when the "sleep" is over and it's time to get up and get moving...I can hardly wait!

Have you thought about "lasagne gardening" for that new area? Doesn't require removing all that grass and it's something you could easily prepare now, even though the weather's not ideal just yet.

 

[secuono]

Don't have a source of free cardboard. I don't want to be buying anything this year, was going to dump in all the horse, sheep, rabbit poop I have, let it sit after mixing and hoping for the best. Oh, and leaves/old hay.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yep, as soon as I can. For me, that pretty much means when it dries out enough to get out there to plant my early spring stuff, usually late February or early March though last year it was mid February. Things like carrots, beets, radishes, peas, onion sets, kale, chard, Bok Choi, and tranplant cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower. I'll need to cover the last three in frosts for a while but they need the early start or it gets too hot on them here.

Something else I do in the fall is prepare this early spring area. I usually have a fairly short window when it dries out enouigh before we get another rain, so I turn the soil and get it ready so all I have ot do is run a tiller through it or maybe just stir it up with a hoe and I'm ready to plant.

And I'll be starting my pepper and tomato seeds later this week inside.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Don't have a source of free cardboard. I don't want to be buying anything this year, was going to dump in all the horse, sheep, rabbit poop I have, let it sit after mixing and hoping for the best. Oh, and leaves/old hay.

You ever go dumpster diving? Some places of business would not mind at all if you ask first.

 

[catjac1975]

Make sure the soil is not too wet or you can damage the tilth of the soil. How are you killing the grass. You can cover it with black plastic to smother the grass. Or you can till it under repeatedly to kill the grass. Incorporate leaves, manure grass clippings etc. In my area we need limestone added to the soil quite regularly.

 

[secuono]

No idea how I will kill the grass. Going to hand cut as much green as I can to feed the rabbits, rest I'll either mix with a shovel or find cardboard and toss poop on top and hope I don't see it come through.

 

[secuono]

Ughhh! This sucks. I stepped outside to look for cardboard I've been storing and such, but the cold hit me and I turned right back inside...

 

[Ridgerunner]

I see you are in Virginia. I'll try to send some better weather your way but all I can offer right now is in the low to mid 50's. It has some strong winds with it though so that might be a problem.

 

[HunkieDorie23]

I am going to get started in March as soon as we get a nice day I am going to put up my hoop houses over my raised beds so the soil starts to warm up. It doesn't pay to do it now though because we are having too much snow. Hard to keep up with.