Got em’ in the ground!

As I had hoped, by Friday my garden was dry enough to work and I was able to get the entire front garden planted. I sent Suzanne off early in the morning to the Daisy Days sale in Richmond we are doing and I got on my knees for the day.

I am again reaping the rewards of my soil- you should have seen the earthworms I disturbed yesterday! My goodness, I can’t remember seeing so many. I’m wonder if it was mulching the beds with straw last season- easier to break down, and move around under? I am planning on doing the same this year.

Making Large Beds with a Troybilt for the Working Garden

After a short recovery from planting all day, last evening I made the beds in our back garden which is about 70′ x 95. It had 24 yards of compost worked into it about a month ago. I use the hilling attachment on my Troybilt 8hp tiller to make the beds or should I say make the pathways, which in turn makes the beds.

These beds drain quickly and focus your amendments where you are growing.

• Place the blades of the hiller in the most upright position, attach to the tiller and set the tiller on the deepest setting.
• Walking behind the tiller to keep it straight, till where you want the pathway– so you are walking in the new path as you make it.
• Make the opposing pathway, you want the finished flat top to be 36-48" depending on your bed width.
• With the pathways made, add your soil amendments- compost, organic fertilizers and till the flat top of the bed staying away from the edge.

The pathways are about 24" wide- enough room to walk and harvest in. As a flower grower friend says, money is not made in the pathways… But more importantly, this method makes less area to maintain and more area to grow in.

We mulch the pathways with leaves- not chopped- no time for that! We use straw, compost, shredded bark or anything else available to mulch beds- sometimes leaves also if i have enough.

Will be planting these beds I have made next week-

Got go off to the Daisy Days Sale-

Lisa