The garden in March - prep work

Planning a garden is so exciting! I love working outside - Deciding what to plant, when to plant, where to plant, & how much to plan, etc. We're preparing our little patch of earth for what will, Lord willing, be a great season of growing. Our garden is about 32x56 feet in size. We are trying to use every inch of space for planting. Mapping things out, thinking ahead. I just planted all the cold weather seeds out in the garden today. Then I planted the "after danger of frost" seeds indoors, under grow lights. We bought a bundle of eighty-something red onions & I planted them outside with the chives, carrots, radishes, peas, lettuces. 

We live near a very large river & apparently our yard used to be river-bottom. The little rototiller we have, failed us miserably, because the ground is rocky. (It's like 70% rock with the rest being dirt.) So we shoveled, hoed, & broke the dirt by hand. Then we pulled & sifted the rocks out of the earth. Once that was complete, we had a lot of rock. So I decided to put some of the rock where the pathways were, the rest we wheelbarrowed out. The river rock that we are so abundantly blessed with, is always round, & anywhere from softball to golfball sized, with smaller silver-dollar sized rocks being the most popular.

In the spring of 2012, we fenced, de-rocked, landscaped, planted grass & installed a sprinkler system on our two & a half acres. It was a huge full time job through summer. We planted over 60 trees & bushes & lots of flowers. It was  backbreaking work. Working hours each day, we did everything ourselves, with the exception of a few dear friends - Who most graciously spared time from their busy lives to help us sift, dig, & move tons of rock & dirt. It was a tremendous blessing, & eventually we got it done. Sometime, I'll post a before/after pics of our yard.. Hmm. Anyways, I had a garden last year, but it was wild, because I didn't have the time to properly tend it. (I did a little  blogging about it though. hehe) 

So this year, I'm really hoping to have a productive, orderly garden… Wish me lots of rain, few grasshoppers, fewer rocks, & maybe a little luck for my green thumb. ;)  

-GB