Now THAT’s a garden!!

Now it may seem that my stories are filled with nothing but disasters all the time.  Not really… ok well, not total disasters really, just a few ooops!  The nice thing about this family is that we are totally not above laughing at ourselves!  Things do go right from time to time. Before our tilling savior left, he did tell us we have beautiful soil – the spot that has been tilled is almost completely free of rocks, stones etc.  Very loamy soil, excellent for growing!  Yippee!!  We bought the right homestead! I would like to say that we totally checked all that out before we bought but, geez, not a single one of you folks would believe me I am sure!  But still totally great news!

So my oh so patient husband – the researcher – explains to me that – now that the garden is tilled – we can never walk on it.  OK smart guy… so how are we going to do this? I really do need to listen more closely when he explains these things to me.  Really it’s not that I don’t listen, I just don’t have the visual……I need the visual.  So he tells me for the 500th time that we will be designing raised beds for our garden, with rows and walkways in between the rows, and how, once we set the rows, we will never walk in the planting beds.  I have to admit to totally leaving the burden of getting the garden off the ground to him, and the pressure is on, because first frost is likely to happen any day, and we need to get the garlic we bought at the festival planted before that happens! Who knew that garlic goes in the ground in the fall?

So, I go off to work every day, and when I get home, more and more of the garden has taken shape, and I am able to see his vision, sort of. First there are these rows and rows of heaped soil.  Three sections – the sections have 19 rows each – in two sections the rows are 30′ long and in the last section the rows are 15′ long.  Again, mammoth garden, just sayin’!  But are we done?  Nope!   Now that the walkways and rows have been determined – we are smoothing out the heaped soil into a flat surface, easily reached from both sides, making it simple to plant, weed and water.  Creating these lovely planting surfaces requires a giant piece of plywood, a hoe, and steel-toed boots.  Slide the plywood along the row and kick it in place with your steel-toed boots.  Hold it in place with your knees and, using the hoe to spread the soil up against the plywood and tap several times to square off the sides of the row. Now honestly, tell me, could you have envisioned what he meant without the pictures???  Please! Really??!!

We all bust butt getting these rows created and I have to admit – it looks like a garden!!!  I think we might have even impressed the neighbours!  This is a totally serious garden.  And no frost!!!  So time to get the garlic ready to go and into a spot in the garden.  The folks at the garlic festival told us it is a really simple process, break the clove bits apart, take the biggest of the cloves and push those buggers into the soil about 2 inches deep and about 4 inches apart. Sounds foolproof!  So 4 different kinds of garlic went into raised bed #1 – it took up darn near the whole row!  320 little garlic gems nestled into the fabulous soil here at Owl’s Hollow Homestead! We will have to see if any thing comes up in the spring.  I think the neighbours are taking bets!

We are nearing the finish line, but not quite done yet! According to my ace researcher, we need to feed the soil with organic matter over the winter.  Fortunately what we need is everywhere right now!  Any guesses?   Leaves!  Tons and tons of leaves!  We need to mulch them and spread them over the rows, then cover the whole thing in plastic.  When spring comes, the leaves will start to rot, and add nutrients to the soil before we plant. (I’m so totally listening now!).  So Chuck, Fallon and Darren head out to dig up as many leaves as they can find.  They raked the leaves from our property first then started scoping out neighbours with trees. Luckily two doors down, a lovely lady had some huge maple trees in her yard – they introduced themselves and asked if she would be ok with them raking up her leaves and taking them.  It was a win win for all concerned.  Bags and bags of leaves!  

Next – how to get these mulched!  We tried driving the lawn mower over them – not quite what we needed.  So Darren heads to the barn to devise a leaf pulverizing gizmo. Voila, give this guy a tired old motor, some sharp metal, a broken down dryer drum and a screwdriver and he will get you hooked up!  A little tweaking here and there and shazam!  It took the mulching doo dah and Chuck three days to get the leaves mulched and spread on the rows – then down goes the plastic!  Just in time too, because the weather is calling for snow!

But isn’t it beautiful!??  Would you have guessed that we had no clue if we were doing any of it right?   Maybe the neighbours want to change their bets now!

Thanks for coming on our journey with us!  If you are enjoying the stories, it would be wonderful to hear your comments, so feel free to add your feedback on the blog site.  Also, friend/like us on Facebook to see tons more photos!  Search under Owl’s Hollow Homestead!