Easter Garden Work Pt. 1

 I got a tremendous amount of work done in the garden over the easter holidays, so I'm going to have to split it up into a few posts; so here is part 1

Every gardener needs a garden cat
to supervise. 

My plan is to double-dig as much of the garden as possible. This helps to bury the weed seeds, as well as preping a nice soft bed for the new veggies. Double-digging is a method I've always used, especially in our last garden where I was turning under a stone-dust & heavy clay dog run into a veggie plot.

To double dig a garden, you simply dig a big long trench, the length of your bed, removing that soil. Then you're loosing the dirt at the bottom of your trench. Then you take a step back and turn the top soil from the next section into the bottom of the first. This disturbs the weed seeds enough that they should germinate and start growing, but be so low under ground they can't reach the surface to become weeds.

Plus, it's loosening up & aerating all the soil for your new veggies, and very easy planting if you've got seedlings to go in.

Should have taken the picture BEFORE I took
most of them out, now they just look sad!

Teeny little sprouts!

For my first little bed I'm planting some Ruby Queen Beets that I had just sprouted in the kitchen.





 I spaced the sprouts around 4"apart on a off-set grid pattern. The boards & plastic are to protect the sprouts from the cold, but even more so, the chickens until we get the fence up.

The colour of my hands all summer

Boards to hold the plastic off the plants

Keeping it covered from cold & chickens

These chickens