It's time to let the cat out of the bag and take a step out on a ledge. For some time now Glenn and I have been trying to come up with ways to put our land to use.It seems silly to have acreage and not use it.
When we first got married I was breaking horses and he was shoeing. It made sense to have land. After three kids and making the decision to home school, breaking horses just became too much. Glenn continues to shoe, but that isn't really a reason to have land. Although we both love having acreage for us and the kids, it just isn't smart to have land only for our enjoyment.
We decided to embark on a journey and see where it takes us. The first step on that journey is starting a large garden this year. This will be our trial run, using the time to figure out how much we can maintain, what things we do well with, and what things don't work at all.
To start we have been getting the ground ready for planting within the next week or two. It's been hard work and continues to be a work in progress. Bear with us as we go through the process. Here are some pictures of what we've been doing.
When we first got married I was breaking horses and he was shoeing. It made sense to have land. After three kids and making the decision to home school, breaking horses just became too much. Glenn continues to shoe, but that isn't really a reason to have land. Although we both love having acreage for us and the kids, it just isn't smart to have land only for our enjoyment.
We decided to embark on a journey and see where it takes us. The first step on that journey is starting a large garden this year. This will be our trial run, using the time to figure out how much we can maintain, what things we do well with, and what things don't work at all.
To start we have been getting the ground ready for planting within the next week or two. It's been hard work and continues to be a work in progress. Bear with us as we go through the process. Here are some pictures of what we've been doing.
This is what we started with, actually there were a lot more weeds before he used the disk, but you can see we have our work cut out.
Next, we used a tiller to get the ground more prepared.We decided to make four beds 50ft by 4ft to start and see how well we can keep up with that.
Here they are marking the beds with string.
Here they are marking the beds with string.
Next step was using the rake to make the raised beds.
A few soil improvements, some rich compost,molasses,and green sand for improved drainage.
We knew we'd need a way to keep the chickens from eating everything we grow so we put panels all the way around and attached chicken wire. Still working on that part.......
We are hoping to have seeds and plants in the ground soon, but before we plant the big beds we are working on row covers and a few other things to reduce the risk of losing plants before we get started.