Start with the plow

I am so thankful it rained the last few days.  It softened up the garden so that I could get a plow through it.  You know the ground is dry when a moldboard plow won't go through your mess.  It did today, though, with the aid of my banged up, but thankfully still running garden tractor.  It doesn't look like a cootie bug anymore (surely, y'all remember playing Cootie).  It looks like someone punched it in the face and broke out its' teeth.

But run it does, albeit not as well as I'd like.  I'm gonna wear it out.  It was already worn out when I got it.  I've had it for about eight years and I give the thing a workout.  I ran it for a couple of hours today just turning over the soil in the garden.

That was the easy part.  I have to start raking it out tomorrow.  Then I'll till it again.  Then I'll plow it again, after it's tilled, to put in the furrows.  Then I will plant corn again and hope for the best.  This time, though, we're going to try better gardening through chemicals.  There will be fertilizer and I'll be trying some of that Preen stuff after the veggies are firmly established.

Last year was a bad year for the garden and a great year for weeds.  It was tough because I didn't have any help and I had to work a lot of long hours.  I'm hoping this year the long hours won't be an issue and that I can plant so that I can use some tools to help me keep the weeds down.  To do my part, I'm going to commit at least one hour a day to weeding the garden this year.

The plow was the right tool for the job.  I took a picture of the back 40 when I ran out of gas in the tractor.  You can see for yourself what I mean.

All that green stuff:  That's weeds and grass that is unwanted.  The small marks in the ground are where I tried to drag the harrow through the ground.  The plow does a far better job, don't you think?

I have a disk and that will be next.  The plow does a great job of turning things over but leaves some pretty good sized dirt clods.  The disk will break them down.  Then comes the harrow again.  The harrow will help me rake out some of the weeds and smooth down the ground.  Then I can till it up using a friend's tiller and after that, it's the plow again to make furrows.

There are still weeds, though, and still fitzers that will need to be cut back.  Someplace under another patch of weeds are my strawberries.  I have a couple of bales of straw to mulch them this year.  Weeds, then 4" of straw.  

The answer to my weed problems isn't really chemicals, per-se.  I need chemicals.  I also could stand about another 9" or so of topsoil.  A fresh layer of topsoil would be perfect.  Even better would be to construct raised beds and landscape around them with gravel pathways.

Someday.  If I win the lottery.

It's funny... I had to mow the lawn today.  Wet and all... and I didn't mind.  Some spots in the back yard, I had to mow three times...once without the bag and then twice with, just to pick up all of the clippings.  It was a good day to be outside.  I was busy.  I love the way the grass looks this time of year, and I'm enjoying being one with nature.  

The garden will be ready for planting.  I will plant what I can of it.  Seed is cheap, so lots of beans and corn this year.  Maybe not so many peppers and tomatoes.  They go in the lower garden and I'm planting them so that each plant gets a dripper to water it.  No more watering the weeds with a sprinkler, at least in that part of the garden.  There is compost we made ourselves to put in the lower part of the garden.  We have stuff starting for the new compost pile.  That gets under way this week as well.

One hour a day.  After the heavy lifting is done.  

If the heavy lifting is done.

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