SO, school, work, and seasonal depression have all been dominating my life lately, but after the purchase of a happy light, tanning (no judgey), and intensive exercise, I'm finally feeling like a person again. It stopped raining just enough to get my plot all finished for the spring! The picture below is just after I expanded the doggy-protection fence.
Anyway, if you've never moved a cubic yard of something, it takes some serious time, effort, and wheelbarrowing. In the end, it was worth it. A few progress pictures for you:
Eventually, I got it all done and it looked like this!
WHAT A PLOT!!!! I had to sit and stare at it for a while after my work was done. It's just so pretty!!!
After that was all said and done, I decided to cover the plot with black plastic to try and warm the soil up a bit before spring planting. We've had an abundance of rain lately (THANKS PACIFIC NORTHWEST), and wet soil has a tendency to stay cold for a long time. Hopefully this method will help. I have my garden planned in such a way that I should be able to start planting on the right and fold back the plastic as I go, until, of course, it gets nice enough outside to uncover completely. This should be convenient if we get any random late freezes as well. I can always just carefully recover in the evenings if a threat prevails.
I've heard mixed things about covering a plot with plastic, black or otherwise. From what I've seen, it's a great way to manage weeds in an unplanted bed and an excellent way to warm the soil. There are some that say it damages the delicate ecosystem of soil microorganisms and may harm important organisms. In a well developed soil, the organisms work together to make sure one bacteria or fungi doesn't take over the rest of them. The result is disease free soil! When you upset this balance, things can get out of hand and you can run into some issues, but I haven't found convincing evidence that black plastic covering for a short period of time will be enough to cause such an imbalance.
You'll also notice that I didn't remove most of the green material in the plot (weeds or otherwise) before overloading with compost. I did this for a few reasons:
1. Ripping all that stuff out is time consuming and annoying. I didn't really like the idea of doing that especially since there was going to be grass involved. Call me lazy, call me irresponsible, call me whatever. I didn't feel like doing it and I shall accept the consequences, good and bad.
2. The more I researched, the more I decided that the plants I ripped up when I did some minor tilling would decay relatively quickly, especially with the heat from the plastic covering. This will result in more nutrients for the plant children! Bonus! Some of those plants were weeds, meaning that I've left weed seeds in my garden bed. I know this. The black plastic should delay their growth a bit, but after that, I'll just have to deal. Pulling weeds isn't my least favorite thing to do in the garden. Sometimes, it's even therapeutic :)
3. The root systems still in place from these now dead plants will act as macropores as the roots start to rot away. This will result in better drainage which is always a goal in my space. Battling the massive amount of clay in my soil is tough, but with good soil management, I shall prevail!! At some point, I'll sure I'll write a blurb about good soil management. It truly is one of the most interesting things I've studied thus far.
Anyway, if anyone in the internet world is glancing at this, I would be interested to hear other people thoughts and feelings about what I'm doing here. What do you do in your garden beds? How do you deal with weeds and other such annoying business? Do you amend your soil? Would you be willing to give minimal tilling a try? Have you tried any of these things before? Just curious!
Until next time...dreaming of a sunny spring
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