We just moved our family to a new homestead late last fall. Before we moved in, everything around us was buckbrush, quackgrass, and rocks...
We have little rocks, medium sized rocks, and very large rocks. The problem is, you can’t dig one hole in our yard without hitting at least one rock. When it came time to plan a garden, the rock issue came up again. I could have a raised garden, but the expense and labour that it would take to get the size of garden that I wanted would have been immense. That was out of the question. So, when we brought in the nice gentleman to rototill for us, we left it up to him where it would go. He walked around… Bent over a bunch of times… Poked the ground… He eventually looked at us, exasperated and said, “You have a lot of rocks”. LOL! Yes we do… Ok, where can we put the garden? “Well, over in that corner looks like the best place”, as he pointed to the most shrubby, grassy, and furthest from the house area of our yard. *sigh* Ok, if we must. A lot of people at this point would have sprayed that area with some serious Roundup. Nope, I’m sticking to my guns!!! This is going to be an organic garden!! He looked amazed when I told him that I wouldn’t be spraying the area first, all we would be doing was using a bobcat to clear away most of the grass and brush. He came by to rototill the ground within a few days of our first meeting.
He still hit a good amount of rocks but luckily, he never bent his machinery. To me, my new 7000 sq ft garden looked amazing.
I immediately started pulling out the big clumps of grass and any turned over shrubs that I could find. It was thick with it. I started by planting my little herb garden... Heavenly!!! Something was finally planted!!!
When I planted the herbs, I was a little nervous. I had planted the poor things in dry sandy soil in the middle of the prairie, where they would have to contend with scortching heat and gale force winds... They actually haven't done too badly. :)
After a few days, I wanted to plant the rest of my garden. The grass had started coming back already, so I asked my husband to rototill again with the small tiller that we own. He tilled half of the garden then. I followed behind him picking out even more shrubberies. I knew then, that I was in trouble. Every time he went over it with the rototiller, we would have more sticks coming up. Oh, I hope they don’t all grow.
I planted half my garden. I still had to plant my pumpkins and cucumbers. I had no irrigation system set up so I had to hand water the whole garden. This took up most of the couple of hours a day that I had set aside to work in my garden. Needless to say, it’s a slow go. My husband, Andrew, works six days a week and late nights, and it seems that whenever he has a day off it's either raining or it had just rained. So, it took him a while to get to rototilling. Well, actually he started it one night after work and my son took over so Andrew could go eat something.
Yay, that’s done. I have 36 tomato plants and 36 pepper plants in my garden that haven’t grown at all in the last month. I think that the soil is maybe pretty weak. We live on rocks, with some sand and clay. Lol I have to add some manure to it. I’ll get to that soon too lol. We also have alot of these little shiny beetles that sit on them. I don’t know if they’re harmful or helpful. Oh well, live and let live.
Yesterday, I spent the full two hours out in my garden, weeding one row. The kids came home from school and two of them helped me do four more. Yay!!! Today, I will do another row.
It’s a lot of work just to keep my little patch of food natural and organic, but it’s well worth it. In later years, it wouldn’t be as tough. So, for now we just tough it out. Hey, the pioneers that settled this land did it, so can we. :)
Last night, my husband got my irrigation system set up, and I wouldn’t have to worry about that so much.
I just have to add some parts to the tops and get the soaker hoses figured out. Hey, maybe I can make some llama tea in the irrigation barrels. That’ll fix two of my problems. :P We’re down to only one llama now, so he’s got a lot of work to do. :)
My dirty helper, Kristian!
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