TIPS FOR PREPARING THE SOIL FOR SPRING PLANTING

Getting the soil ready during the window of opportunity April 6-16 before it got cold and had a little snow.  It is important to prepare the soil by putting compost of some sort on the soil, about one inch, either fall or spring.  I usually prefer spring so it is fresh.  I have a large compost pile of cow/horse and left over plant parts composted from last year.  You can see me shoveling this into the wheel barrel and then putting on top of my raised bed gardens where I planted winter rye last fall for good organic material available for spring.  You will see my two dogs roaming around and my precious Saddie in the bed exploring.  She is a bundle of energy.















Below you will see my larger sandy soil with rye growth from
the fall, which has been tilled in.  I will not be putting
    compost on the top soil this year as this year when it
    warms up a bit I will be planting a spring cover crop or what is
    called green manure of field peas, hairy vetch and clover to
    enrich the soil with nitrogen and also organic material.  Because
    my soil is so sandy, it always needs amendments.

 To the right you will see further raised bed gardens on the west side of my south fenced in raised bed gardens.  Ready for planting a variety of greens soon hopefully so that I can do succession planting...when one batch so to speak is done then plant another batch of fresh greens for eating and juicing!!!  Happy happy about that.

My raised bed garden in the south side of the main gardens, Rye and compost tilled in.  Will keep the garden beds watered if no rain to provide moisture for the microorganisms to continue breaking down the organic matter from the compost pile providing a slow release of soil nutrition.