Finally We Can Start Gardening

I have been reading countless posts lately about gardening, lawn mowing and flowering trees, but we haven't been there quite yet... until this weekend. Finally the rain stopped and the weather was beautiful. The temp was in the sixties and sunny, and we have tulips!

The trees have started to bud.
I cleaned out the empty room in the barn that our barn cat was using as his personal litter box potting shed. We had been using that room (formerly the granary, I believe) for storing all of our gardening tools and supplies, but it was a big mess. The only way I can tackle a project like that is to remove everything, clean it all out, throw out the things that I know I will never use, then put everything back in with some sort of order.

I could use a table yet for working on but for now just being cleaned out and not smelling like old cat pee is a major improvement. I think I won... for now! It should stay clean until I'm ready to plant and everything is back to it's normal state of disarray.

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The 4 Wheel Drive Gardener was at it again tearing apart the lawn to pitch the water away from our sheds.

We still need to seed the area and deal with all of the dirt he removed during the leveling process, but much improved.

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I worked on prepping my vegetable garden for planting. I won't plant for another week or two but I had plenty of work to do. I pulled all of the grass and weeds out from between the raspberry and blueberry bushes, added some fresh soil around the raspberries and a mix of soil and peat moss around the blueberries and covered them all with a fresh layer of mulch.

Same thing for the strawberry patch and the row of asparagus, except I used straw instead of mulch.

I tested the soil for the first time because last year my garden wasn't as successful as I had hoped and had way too many weeds.

The PH was a little high (alkaline) and the nitrogen was low but everything else tested out fine. Good thing because the only levels I know how to alter are the PH (I added peat moss) and the nitrogen. Besides peat moss we also added some composted manure, our very own vegetable compost and some black sandy soil harvested from my father-in-law's field.

The vegetable garden is actually 2 huge 25X30 gardens with a row of rhubarb and a strip of grass in between, and that rusty looking thing on the left is our burn barrel. I have started a garden layout but I won't be sure until I buy all of the plants and convince my husband to construct some trellises. Like he doesn't have enough to do...

Today I am sore everywhere, the Gardener hobbled out of bed, and the sunshine we saw this weekend is obvious on our faces and my shoulders, but damn did it feel good.