Mid-Winter Garden Chores

Of course, garden chores are always easier with a BIG tractor. HA !
How to turn your compost pile with ease ..... use a tractor with a scooper. Our compost pile has been "building" for nearly 2 years now, and was in need of being turned. And in all of 2 seconds, it was stirred well and turned ... and we didn't even break a sweat. HA !

We spent on of our rare sunny afternoons (but chilly) weeding the garden. With all of the rain, the weeds were beginning to take hold, but thankfully the soil is soft (also from the rain) so weeding was really easy.

Later that same afternoon, the Dairyman who lives on the farm took Cherub 6 with him (a big treat to ride in the big John Deere - he was smiling the whole time !) while he hauled load after load of composted manure from the barns to our garden. He covered the whole garden with the composted manure (about 3-4" thick), and then scraped it all smooth. He also scooped up the huge piles of autumn leaves we had raked, and spread those on the garden.

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In a few weeks, the dairyman will come back to "rough till" the garden (with the big tractor and plow), and then when planting time gets closer we will fine till it again (with our rear-tine tiller) until everything is well mixed, soft, and fluffy.

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All residents of Beck's Bounty are "a-buzz" with the garden-bug .... we are getting more and more excited !

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On Thursday we made a trip to the library for gardening books. When there is a stack of 20 gardening books, how can a person read them all in time for the actual gardening, much less remember all of the information ? Well, in our family, there are 6 "readers" on this project (myself and 5 "reading" Cherubs) .... so we each choose books to read, and then take notes to "share" with each other. Multi-tasking at it finest. HA !! It has been some time since we read any "new" gardening books, because we have been gardening off and on for years. But we have some new projects to try this year .... we are looking into how to start our own plants from seed this year (this will be the first time for us), and also are learning as much as we can about Heirloom seeds.

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It won't be long now ..... we hope.