We had quite the date night this past fall: a trip to the hardware store for ground contact 2x6s and lots and lots of dirt.
After my huge disappointment over the initial testing of our ‘orchard’ soil, Evan and I decided on building raised beds for our blueberry bushes. Twelve holes are now twelve little raised beds, filled with peat moss and a compost/manure soil mixture. It was really fun to reveal the very defined layers of the raised box dirt when we planted the bushes the other week.
Between the blueberry patch and the vegetable garden, our dirt has been astonishingly disappointing, and we are hoping our amendments in the fall will produce a better crop this season. The vegetable garden did not need as aggressive of amending for the upcoming season, but still received a layer of compost and mulch back in the fall.
Improving the soil is a slow process, and obviously only time will tell how much more work we will need to put into it. In order to keep the improvements coming, we are also more aggressively composting and mulching. Anything that doesn’t get fed to the chickens goes into the compost heap, and every few weeks the chicken bedding gets added in as well.
As we continue to test the soil and grow our plants, the literal fruits of our labor will be apparent. I am optimistic about the adjustments we have made since last summer, and am excited to see what sort of harvest we will have this year. Want to know more about our processes or just want to chat dirt and gardening? Leave us a comment or check us out on one of our social platforms!
Wow you two!!! Impressive!! Opa would have been a great resource and would have been impressed with your farm project also.