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Mike's Garden Blog
Questions, Answers, Musings about gardening. | |
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| January 2008 Brings a New Year and New Garden Challenges January 3, 2008 12:06:59 By no means do I have this gardening thing mastered. Each season brings new challenges and surprises. When you deal with the weather and growing living things you are a participant rather than a boss. No matter if you know it or not. There are some new things I would like to try this year and some old problems still to be solved or at least worked on. I probably do not usually even start thinking about gardening at this time of year. Right now it is about 30 degrees out and the garden is covered with an inch of snow or so. Everything is froze up out there. But, there are things I would like to do this year that will need to be started when I can be outside and working on it during the winter just to be ready for spring planting. There is an area about 10 or 12 feet wide that runs along the south side of my garden that is presently outside the fence. It is covered with wild raspberry plants, some poke berry plants, and some runners from an old hedge. I would like to clear this off and use it this year. The raspberries have never amounted to much and I have wild raspberries growing on other parts of the farm that are well worth picking so I do not need these anyway. I had decided to bring this area into the garden proper last year but just recently thought I might try something along the lines of a permaculture type culivation in this area. Or maybe a sort of raised bed type thing in this area would be interesting and effective. The clearing will need to be done in January or February so I can begin adding compost and horse manure to the area before mulching. Though maybe the mulching should be done after the planting. We will see and I will document it on these pages as things happen. I would like to grow some heirloom vegetables and I think I will start looking around for some sources. If anyone has some good sources for heirloom seeds especially adapted for the US Midwest please post it in the comments on this article. My fence, erected last year in response to a rabbit problem, needs to be strengthened or made more effective. It is a pretty long run around the whole garden, probably about 400 feet by the time the new section is added, so it will be a big job that will need to be done before springtime. Since we increased the size of the horse barn this year and made it more comfortable for the horses they are spending more time in there and consequently leaving more manure to be cleaned out so I will have to periodically haul that out and probably store it to be spread later before working the ground in the spring. Also, I will be picturing my solar heat collector and describing how I built it whenever the weather warms up and I can get some pictures of it. We will be working on our house this year and will try to incorporate more solar components which I will show and talk about on this site. Gee, I am tired already just thinking about all the work to be done this coming year. I thing the most important thing is to pace myself and try to enjoy what it is that needs to be done. Comment on this article | |