Getting the Garden Ready

 It is spring and time to get the garden ready again. All winter we've used the garden as a staging area to burn limbs and debris from the meadow. It has been almost an every-other weekend project. Needless to say, we've generated copious amounts of ash which we've spread there whenever the burn barrel filled.

 So the garden was literally black and white rather than the rich brown we expect.

 You can easily see the ashes in the picture above. Some green wood burnt poorly and we were left with charcoal (black); other dry wood and logs burnt completely (white) and resulted in fine ash. We distributed this on that garden even though it raises the pH (wood ash is highly alkaline with a pH between 9 and 13). I should measure the pH of our soil as we've probably made it way too alkaline.

 Working the ashes in sure makes the soil look more garden friendly. We use Bob's tiller every spring. It's a small model that doesn't dig very deeply but it serves to break the soil up and mix it somewhat. It's a good starting point and saves a lot of back-breaking work.

 This was done on March 28. Tom followed up the next day by spading the entire garden by hand. Next weekend he'll break those clods up with tiller again. And then the garden will be ready for planting.

 We also want to open a new garden patch at the edge of the meadow. Our wood pile has many old, rotten logs at its base and Tom broke some up with a sledge hammer. That soft wood will be turned into the soil as compost. I also carried many bucketfuls away to place beneath some of our young trees. It makes a pretty edging and will kept grass at bay.

  While working there we uncovered a nest of baby rabbits. None (there were four) had their eyes open so they were probably less than ten days old. Mama didn't seem to be returning to feed them, though, so I doubt they survive. Yesterday (March 30) was rainy and last night the rain turned to sleet and the temperature fell to 26°. That's not good news for nature's youngest creatures.