The garden is tilled up at last and, as soon as we get the fencing in, we’ll be ready to go! We had originally planned to till last weekend, but with the surprising April snow we received, the ground was just too wet. When tilling with machinery or even by hand, it’s important not to work on wet soil, as, among other issues, the compaction already caused by feet and tires is exacerbated and turning wet soil can cause large clods to form, making a less hospitable soil environment for microbes and plants. Today, the soil moisture was perfect and, in little more than an hour, our 900 square-foot plot was turned from grassy lawn to dirt.
The first thing I did after the tilling was complete was to get my hands in the fresh soil. We’ve had a gorgeous spring here and, unlike the last few years, I could have begun planting in the ground in early March. It’s been almost torture for me to watch the weather stay fairly consistently warm and be unable to get any seeds in the ground. So running the soil through my hands really gave me hope that planting is finally just around the corner!
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