I finally got the garden started today! After years of neglect, DH and I attacked the raised beds (ish, they're falling apart). Ripped out a 6'x6' area of grass, mint, and other miserable ground covers, then a 2.5'x10' bed with some slightly less miserable weeds. Left a 2.5'x6' bed with mint- didn't want to fight it. And then another 4'x4' bed, which wasn't too bad except for the TREE starting to come up in the middle. Luckily they were all in pretty damp and loose soil. But still, took about 3 hours for that part with both of us working non-stop. Turns out the soil is actually pretty good under everything! I guess I shouldn't be surprised, with how insanely all the volunteer tomatoes grew last year. Downside: 2 different ANGRY ant hills. Near as I could find, best advice is "if they're close to the surface, stir the soil and flood them, over and over, until they leave". Anyone tried this? Otherwise, I'll just give those little areas to them and surround them with herbs and marigolds and other things that will keep them at bay.
We are going extremely low budget on the garden this year, so we rocked it old school with one shovel and one rake, borrowed from the neighbor lady. Doing seeds instead of starts (except if we stay through the whole summer- I will do starts for tomatoes). So far today I got in peas and carrots. Tomorrow I will finish up the planting with radishes, lettuce, marigolds, chives, oregano, and cilantro.
Because of budget, we are eschewing thing I really WOULD want, but am not going to do, like: extra soil, proper row markers, re build the beds, good soil amendment/compost tea, nematodes, lady bugs, etc. These would certainly benefit the garden, but it just isn't somewhere we want to invest right now. Also, we don't own the property and may move in late July, so that would eat most savings anyway =(
Anyway, was awesome getting my hands in the dirt again!
