I was really excited this year because now that most of the inside projects on our house are finished, I was ready to start on the outside projects. I had a friend come teach me how to work on our sprinkler system. I put a lot of hours into digging up all the broken lines and replacing them. We planted some new grass in the bare patches in the front yard too. Finally it was time to plant the garden.
Now, unlike the fertile soil of my home, the soil here where we live is more of the kind that discourages life of any kind. The first time we tried to plant a garden here we just used fertilizer and our corn only grew about a foot tall and most of the plants didn't do so hot. We learned that some "soil preparation" was required if you want to grow a garden. We have some friends who have horses so on our last garden we tilled in some manure and it made for a great garden.
I was really excited to get my soil prepared here at the new house so one afternoon, I took my pickup out to our friends house to get manure. I was feeling pretty ambitious, so when I got there I said "Load me up as full as you can get it". My friend took me seriously, so he loaded the manure so high that it was just taller than the cab. This made for quite a site driving down the highway with manure billowing out the back. The best part was when I hit the road construction coming into town and I had to go over all the small bumps.
When I started to unload the pickup in the garden spot, I started to doubt my decision to get so much manure. I unloaded and unloaded and unloaded. I spread the manure around. It seemed pretty thick, but I thought with enough work I could till it into the ground. Well, after borrowing two different rototillers, I have decided that I got WAY to much manure. Sadly, time and weather are against me. It has rained so much that I haven't had time to scoop out and move the excess manure. I am starting to feel like a garden might have to wait until next year. One of my friends came over tonight to help me line out the chain link fence we are putting up and he happens to be an extension agent. He told me I should have some of the best soil in town next year when the manure gets worked into the ground more. For some reason my mind keeps thinking "what the crap". At least I got some raspberry starts that seem to be doing ok. They weren't planted in the overly manured area.
3 comments:
That's funny. Live and learn.
Reed keeps talking about bringing manure down for our garden. Hasn't happened yet.
You made my day! Karen and I started gardening way back when, and were having trouble growing much in our forest site. Some rancher friends suggested manure. I asked, "How much?" They said it was hard to get too much, and that we could put it on 8" thick and the only problem we might notice was that it would be a little sticky the first year.
I don't think we ever put it on that thick, but we did start trading pottery for farm truck loads of manure. After many years things really grow well. Unfortunately, the Voles think they have found paradise and we have had to resort to raised beds with hardware cloth bottoms. [Razor wire and electric fence are in the plans if the little buggers ever figure out they can climb over the sides.....] dave waln
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