If there is one thing I have learned living in this house, it is planning skills. You see I am a jump in head first kind of gal, and I am I quickly finding that in the world of gardening this may not be the best approach. I have weeded an overgrown garden without putting ground cover down, just to have all the weeds come back in full force. I have transplanted flowers in hot weather, only to stress them out and make them look horrible for the rest of the summer. And now, I have chosen a not so great patch of land for my skimpy garden. You see I looked around the yard in the morning and said: "That looks like a good spot." The problem with this, is that the spot I choose only gets morning sun and it is close to the swampy area in our back yard, making the soil pretty dense. Last year we attributed the soil to hand tilling the ground and tilled(with a power tiller) in top soil and compost. It is still a pretty sad looking garden. Oh, and did I mention it is about as far away from a water source as you can get on our land? During the recent hot spell, having to carry bucket loads of water back and forth was less then desirable.
Thankfully this year (after we had already planted this years garden), I had a lady come in and do a garden consultation, for all of my gardens. What did she tell me "move the garden." Thankfully there was an area that had been overcome with Bishops Weed that she pointed out would be the perfect spot for raised beds and is wonderfully close to a water source.
And all that work Andy did on fencing in the garden was not done in vain, it is the perfect spot for berry bushes. We also have some vegetables, it is just not a flourishing garden.
So what did I learn?
1. Plan before you leap
2. Get a soil test (we will be doing this before we plant the berry bushes)
3. Don't hand till
4. Watch the garden all day to make sure you really have a sunny area (of course I should have known this because
5. Consider how far away from the water source you are.
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