Prepping the spring garden at Wren Acres is one of my favorite things to do. There is so much to see and do and the warmer weather makes me giddy. I’m blessed to know I’ll never be bored during this terrible pandemic. I’ve got a list a mile long of things to work on.
A few weeks ago, I started some seeds in the upcycled greenhouse. Swiss Chard, Bok Choy, Lettuce, Basil, Peppers, Tomatoes, a ga-zillion zinnias (my favorite), sunflowers, and some other butterfly-attracting flowers. Everything else will be directly sown into the garden beds.
While we wait for the seedlings to mature enough to go into the spring garden, there are a few things we’ve had to prep first.
Prepping the gardens #1 thing to do: Install a fence
For the past several years, the garden has been an all-you-can-eat buffet for deer, gophers, and rabbits. We tried putting netting around individual beds, but it was a lot of work and made picking the veggies (if there were any left) hard to do.
This year, we decided to bite the bullet and put in a fence. We used large timbers and deer netting. It’s almost done except for the gates.
Hubs designed the fence so we will have easy access but, at the same time, the fencing won’t block too much of the view of our backwoods. Friends and family jumped right in to help with the post hole digging.
Prepping the gardens #2 thing to do: Add the compost
We have a system for making compost for the gardens. We put out goats and chickens together into one good-sized animal pen. Since doing that, we haven’t had any problems with predators eating our chickens.
All year long, we toss our kitchen scraps, yard trimmings, and fall leaves into the pen. The goats nibble on the green stuff and the chickens scratch through the leaves and debris eating plants and bugs along the way. What we’re left with each spring is several inches of great compost all over the area. The leaves break down and the animals leave behind . . . well, you know.
We moved the sticks to the back fire pit. We’ll have to wait for the fire ban to be lifted at the end of April to burn them. This year, we used our neighbor’s tiller to make the area easier to shovel. Hubs also cleaned out the chicken coop and added the “stuff” to the compost.
We spent a few days picking up sticks and raking away the top layer of brown leaf litter. The leaf litter will be used to top-dress and mulch the garden beds once the plants are in the ground. The hardest part? Getting the peanut-gallery out of the way so we can work. We shoveled the compost into the wheelbarrow and hauled it to the large garden plot.
Hubs hauled 13 wheelbarrows full of compost to the raised beds in the garden. We have 10 beds. He definitely got all of his exercise that day! We didn’t get it all done that day and still have 2 more beds to finish up.
We raked back the current layer of leaf debris and added the wonderful compost to each garden, spreading it out. Then we raked the leaf debris back into place to help keep the weeds down.
Prepping the gardens #3 thing to do: Play with goats
In the middle of all of this, the goats decided to put on a show. Lots of headbutting and running around. Goats shenanigans if you ask me.
I’d like to think Gus was saying “Happy Springtime”, but I think he was really saying, “Can I nibble on your camera?”.
