Amendments to the Soil in the Garden

Part of the field where we are planting veggies is more clay like than other areas, so we have been amending the soil. Not only have we mixed in good cotton bur compost with better soil, but we have added lava sand and green sand. Both of these products help improve clay soil that gets very hard and compacted. 

This is the first year to spray beneficial nematodes. These are beneficial microbes in the soil that help control grub worms, larvae, fleas and other un-beneficial insects. You can find these online, and we ordered ours through Arbico Organics. Here is my husband Pap spraying them in our garden area.

It has been a cold extremely windy day here in East Texas with forecast of a freeze tonight. So we continue to prepare the beds, sow more seeds in the greenhouse and wait for warmer weather. Come on Spring! We are ready for you!  

 

Waiting for Warmer Temperaures

 It is still cold here in East Texas with temperatures in the 30's. Not the ideal situation for tender young seedlings! So we are patiently waiting for the days to warm up, so we can put them in the ground. In the meantime we have our seedlings all over the house in windows and in the greenhouse. Our kitchen window is a great area for growing seeds. It wraps around a corner so there is alot of sunlight during the day. We have been experimenting with a few other places in the house too. Our bedroom and bathroom windows have been good for growing too. We don't have all the fancy growing lights and heating pads, but have had no problem growing our seeds. Once they are seeded in soil we place them in a baggie or cover with saran wrap to keep the moisture in, and place them in a sunny spot. When they reach an inch or two tall the bags are removed, and they continue to grow. I did transplant our peppers and cucumbers into bigger growing containers this past week-end. They were bursting at the seams and needed more room! Hopefully, they will all be in the ground soon. 

Rocks from Field

The top part of our field sits atop a large conglomerate of big rocks. Last year we did the no-till method of gardening and put mounds of soil on top of grass to plant our vegetables. We did have lots of success, and harvested pumpkins, corn, squash, beans in this same area where Pap has tilled and is now digging up large rocks. Wanting to go bigger in our efforts of farming we made the decision to till this year. As you can see in the pictures, Pap is building rock altars and I must say I love them!

We have many seedlings that are sprouting up in the greenhouse and inside our kitchen windows. They are patiently waiting until the soil warms up to be planted. In the meantime we are preparing the beds, the field and the tilled rows, and uncovering many beautiful rocks. Some of the soil amendments we are using are lava sand, cotton bur compost along with our own homemade compost, horse manure and corn meal. We are also purchasing beneficial nematodes this year with hopes it will control some of the insect problem we had last year. These are beneficial microbes in the soil that help control grub worms, larvae, fleas and other un-beneficial insects. I am sure our dogs will love being less flea bit this year too!