March 7th, 2010

Rototilled the garden today. I took out some of the lawn as it not needed and is a waste to just mow it. It is a sod garden this year and as far as I know this area has never been a garden. It turned into a bit of an archaeological dig, however I did not find anything really cool, like arrowheads (which are common in this area). I suspected I would find a bit of garbage as I broke the soil, but oh-my-gosh!!!

This photo reminds me of those picture puzzles in where you need to find objects from a list. If this was one such game, you would need to find a dog choke chain, a deer, a bit of pretty pottery, a railroad spike, the longest nail in the world, 3 shotgun shells, a hoe, a silver spoon, a pair of pliers, ect, etc ect. All this stuff was found with merely one pass of the tiller. I am sure there will be more that surfaces.  A metal detector would be fun here!!

he The soil is like going through melted butter. It is wonderful. On parts I was sinking the tiller (without trying) as deep as the tiller would go on the first pass. Hitting it a second time, the whole garden was 14" deep at least. My heirloom carrots are gonna love that!

I timed tilling with when the baby would be hungry and then sleeping. but for awhile she was watching "Dora the Explorer" and "It's a Big Big World". There are a few shows I will let her watch.

I couldn't be more pleased with my garden soil. There is a bit of gravel in one area where there was a road at some point, but I can work with it. Many years ago, I had a garden in an old road bed with rip-rap and the stones became my friends as they really helped the tomatoes and peppers ripen faster due to dissipating heat back out of the rock at night.

Yesterday I also took the Pesticide Free Zone Pledge (again) and this metal sign will hang on the garden gate (although I set it in the newly tilled garden spot for this photo to add a little excitement other than looking at just dirt). When the veggies are up and getting large, maybe I will send a picture of the sign into the main organization as they post photos that people send in.