Friday, April 20, 2012

Gardening 2012

Last year we had our garden raised off the ground because we were doing earth moving on our property to get the area ready for our new garden home. We are very excited to start our work this spring.
We had the earth leveled on the side of our garage. It had a significant slope to it, and the water did not drain properly around the building as well.
We have taken the legs off the planters and made them double so that more soil can be inside of them. Last year the soil was not deep enough. In Colorado it cools off so much at night that it affected the soil temperature. This year we are hoping for better results with them on the ground. The soil should retain its heat. We are doing the lasagna gardening or sheet mulching to create our area underneath the gardens. We are using tons of cardboard to layer the areas underneath and in the walkways. We will later add mulch to the walkways to further aid in keeping out the weeds.
This year I would make my Mom Ray proud because we are following the Farmers Almanac planter's guide. We have already planted our root vegetables in two of the boxes.
We are using plenty of organic compost that we have from dairy farm waste and brewery (i.e., Coors) waste.