Establishing a garden in a new place is an exciting but challenging endeavor. If it is to produce an abundant harvest for you and your family, here are a few steps I suggest you take in its development.
- Make a plan for your carefully chosen site
- Fence the site if you have critters who will want to take more than their fair share
- Eliminate grass from the site
- Build your soil and its biology using green manure/cover crops, compost, minerals, etc.
- Form your beds
- Establish an irrigation system
- Plant your seeds or seedlings
You can see in the photo above the importance of building your soil and its invisible biology. This is one section of our Penthouse planted to the mustard greens that I mentioned last week. On the right you can see where we started the process of soil improvement last spring. On the left is ground that was previously paddock, growing grass for cattle, that we have not improved in any way except for a light sprinkling of lime. You can see the obvious results.
We first did a soil test to see what minerals were deficient, and found we needed Calcium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Nitrogen, Zinc, Boron, and Molybdenum. We took first steps to correcting those deficiencies, choosing to amend these deficiencies gradually over time instead of all at once. We broad forked the beds to increase air in the soil, applied these elements (the last 3 in minute amounts), some molasses and some Organic Life fertilizer, added about 50mm of compost, and incorporated it all into the soil.
We are about to incorporate this mustard green manure crop into the soil and then cover it with a tarp for a few weeks. Then on the right hand side we will give the whole treatment above, and on the left we will add a little more lime, a little more of the trace elements needed, some molasses, and a little more compost before we plant the new crops.
Each new crop we will do something similar, and over time this process will support an ever growing richness and abundance of biological life in that soil that will result in a harvest of nutrient dense and tasty veggies for us all to share.