I’ve been wrestling with part of the yard for five years and by god I think I’ve got it!
It’s hard to see, but this is the best early shot I have for what I now call the “side garden.”
As you can just make out in 2003 it was completely overgrown, including sporting it’s own willow.
I worked hard and pulled the brambles, goldenrod, and weeds so that I had a cleared area in 2005.
Just ignore the cats. They didn’t lift a paw.
In 2006 I got help from an friend and pulled out a bunch of stumps.
Then tried to plant.
But I was mostly defeated by weeds and poor soil. (Add in a bit of laziness and too little mulch.)
I didn’t do much better in 2007, so I finally got smart. In the fall I added humus and manure. I dragged 400 pounds of the stuff up there and covered the whole area.
Over the winter I thought about my problem. I also read several books on the subject of soil and finally decided I needed to take drastic action. In the spring I began to put in raised beds.
I wanted to plant early so I made row covers out of chicken wire and reemay. here you can see lettuce and Brussels sprouts.
I also tucked away potatoes in the upper right bed and various seeds in the bottom bed.
And things started growing.
This is, by far, the best I’ve ever done. And man it tastes good.
Better soil through adding poop, mulch, and bags of topsoil. I’ve done better weed management (so far), and got more time for my efforts with season-extending covers.
It’s not that the garden evolved, my brain evolved.
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