Well, I did not get as much done today as I would have liked but that was because my husband got called in for extra work. Extra work means extra money so I am not too disapointed. I got the frame up for one raised bed and its about 1/4 full of soil. I have to say the topsoil sold at the stores seems to have a bit of debris in it so in the future I will only be buying the humus with manure mixture. I am hoping to setup one or two composting boxes this year too. I did not get a before or afte shot of the yard unfortunately as my batteries for the camera are charging but I will get a photo in the morning before I begin the next stage of work.
It will be a week or so until I can get more soil for the bed but I can still do other prep work. For example I plan to grow flowers around the outter peramiter of the raised beds so I can strip that area around the one bed that is in of grass and other unwated junk. Oddly I did find trash buried in the soil I turned for the raised bed, and a lot of rocks but those were expected.
The bed put in today will have our 3 tomato plants and 4 or 5 pepper plants. Those will be bought later on when they are available at the local greenhouses. Once we have the soil in to the level needed for this year we plan to turn the soil with some fertilizer. We plan to water every other week with a special mix of:
1 tbsp powdered milk
1 tbsp epsom salts
1 tbsp store brand fertilizer
dissolved in a gallon of water per raised bed. Otherwise, water will be either from our tap or a container we plan to put out to catch rain water for the beds. We also have plans to start a new watering method shared with us by a friend. The method involves cutting the bottoms off of pop bottles and poking holes in the sides. You leave the lid on and bury in the ground with the open end up and not burried. This lets you fill it with water for a slow release and thorough soaking. They should be filled as early as possible every 3-5 days depending on temperatures and rainfall. Obviously if the soil is still damp you would not want to fill them.
That's all for now, but stay tuned as we also plan to share about our canning in this blog!
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