Starting the Spring Garden

After a late spring I am finally getting a start on my garden.  This means that my dear readership will be getting a few more posts of my puttering around my yard like the old man that I pretend to be.

The main thing I need to get done is expanding my garden.  Last year I had a garden that was roughly 50 ft² and just grew peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes.  This year the garden is getting expanded out to 174 ft², but that means I am having to turn over a lot of soil to get the area ready.  It is also the first year I'll be doing a spring crop, so I am hoping everything goes smoothly.

It doesn't look like much yet.  I just hope the neighbors don't complain about the mess.

The past couple of days have had good sunny weather so I got to work staking out the garden expansion.  I broke down a big cardboard box that was lying around and decided to use it as a partial cover for the garden.  Currently I have about half the area turned over, but finishing that particular task might take a while longer as a storm system has rolled into the area for the weekend.  I'll have to wait for the soil to drain again before I start trying to turn the remaining area..

I did get my chard and snow pea seeds into the ground yesterday.  I also had some snow pea starters in some jiffy pots that went into the ground as well.  The chard is covered with cardboard until the start to sprout, and then I'll remove that cover and mulch them with straw.  I also have spinach seeds I need to sow, but I've decided to wait until the storm rolls out of the area before I take care of that.

I also think we have decided to try planting some blackberries and rasberries to the north of the garden in the so-called "weed-patch."  I was somewhat concerned about how to keep berry bushes from taking over the area since they tend to send out a vigorous network of runners, but some research into the issue lends me to believe that I should be able to control that problem with a solid set of 10-inch deep root-barriers around the bushes.

Of course, this means more digging, but luckily that is a task I do enjoy.