Spring Prep

While I have been an avid reader of several blogs over the last few years, I have little knowledge of Blogging itself. But, like most things in life, I am sure that I will find a good how-to-book out there somewhere. In the mean time, I hope anyone who finds this little journal will bear with me as I try to properly categorize the site and learn the etiquette of blogging.

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way I thought that I might share a ray of hope with some of the northern folk out there.

We are gearing up for the Spring push! That's right, here in the Sunshine State we don't have much of a Winter. Now don't get me wrong, it is usually February that catches us off-guard. It is the coldest month of our year, with some freezing weather and the occassional 20 something dip at night. For the most part though, folks around here can work in the garden for 10 to 11 months of the year, if they desire to. The big time to start transplants is next week and within the next 10 weeks we will have nearly everything in the ground, the Lord willing, of course. Can't wait!

The last couple of years have been a real trial because we got started late and lost nearly everything to bugs and heat stress. These are both huge problems in Florida and when mixed with a soil that is 90% sand you really have to work to get some canning done! I am going to try and post a pic of the square foot garden that we did when we started out a few years back.

I am not sure how I did it, but I got a partial shot of one of the children's "plots" up there.

Did I mention s-a-n-d? Boy, I forgot how bad it used to look! Alot has changed since then and I will be sure to get some new pics up soon that tell the story of what organic composting can do for sandy soil. Until I figure out how to import them I will just let you know that it really does help. We started with soil that had never been worked and after a little time, we have what most folk around here would consider black gold! It was just a matter of implementing what I had read for so long. Save everything possible for the compost stack and work it accordingly, and you will be rewarded. In fact, that is what the next several weeks will consist of. Turning a season of carefully prepared compost into the beds so they will be ready for the planting. I really do hope to figure out how to get some recent pic's up because they tell the whole story of the wonder of organic methodology. Here's what we did:

First, we went online to order one of those Compost Tumblers that make magical stuff in weeks.

Then, we laughed, and choked, and laughed some more at the price of one of those things!

Next, we looked into building a three bin system that all the "farming" books show, and figured out we couldn't afford that either, so... we starting doing what my Granny's people have always done when pressed to solve a homestead problem...we looked out in the yard to see what kind of junk we could use.

That's when we saw those 12 tires that someone had left here, back before we came to this place, and remembered somewhere reading about a simple "tire stack" compost system.

Voila! 3 stacks of tires, each 4 high, and we had the beginning of a real soil-building machine.

Every other Saturday, the boy's rake the hay out of the chicken coop and run, mix in the rabbit droppings, (excellent quick fertilizer, can be used immediately), throw a scoop of wood ashes from the fireplace or burn pile in, take all of Mother's kitchen scraps, and mix it up and throw it into the first stack. After 2 weeks, you simply take one tire off at a time, and move the mix to the next bin. That's really all there is to it! As you get to the 3rd bin the stuff is so broke down that there is plenty of room for more.

I can't stress enough the importance of building organic matter into sandy, well draining soil. Without it you will never beat the nematodes here, much less the heat. We have gone to double dug, wide beds and are very pleased. In 4 years of gardening we have gone from a speck of beans to nearly 60% of what we would normally buy at the store, and my wife is a fabulous cook with a wide variety of menu's.

We neglected a fall garden this year but can still do carrots and brocolli until the last week of January if it is a quick variety. I really wanted to have the beds rested and ready for this spring.

I geuss that will do for now until I can get a few pics up. We will be doing some rabbit butchering as we move into the next couple of weeks so I will try and keep things updated.