Oh The Work To Do!

Each non-rainy day I can spend a bit of time getting the garden ready for planting.  Yesterday I managed 2 small beds.  Today so far it's just one big bed.  It's not just turning over the soil.  I have to check for root invasion and pull out any trespassers.  Then the soil must be turned over and broken up.  It'll be turned over again before planting, compost will be added and the bed raked smooth.  But this initial turning over of the soil is important.  It allows me to check for cedar roots as well as monitoring the soil quality.

Newly turned over beds

One of the newly-created beds years ago needed filling with soil we didn't have so we tried out a local supplier.  The day we went to get the soil, the skies opened up and we just had the soil loaded and left without giving it a good once over.  When we got home we discovered the soil was almost all clay!  It only half-filled the bed, but what water landed on it didn't drain at all!  Fortunately we had a good sand pile at the time and I added almost the same amount of sand as there was clay and dug it in well, topping it off with lots of compost.  Initially that bed was a dead loss, but has since turned out to be an excellent growing spot.  I still come across pockets of clay or sand when I turn it over, but each year it's better and better.

Yesterday when I turned over one of the 4x4 beds which had contained Pacific Russet potatoes, I discovered that we hadn't cleaned the bed out as we'd thought we had!  Right in the centre were 6 good-sized potatoes, all with healthy sprouts on them.  I re-planted the spuds in the other available 4x4 bed.  I'll need 3 more potatoes for that bed, but was delighted with the find.

Clump of Bright Lights Swiss Chard complete with fir cones!

One of the things I have to do before preparing a bed for turning over is take off all the fir cones.  An enormous Douglas fir tree stands above the garden.  Decades ago its top was broken off and so it looks like a giant bonsai.  The squirrels pull off the cones and drop them below, so the beds are covered with fir cones.

Squirrel cone processing locations

And walking around the garden today, I discovered lots of places that the squirrels process their cones.  We are fortunate to still have our native red squirrels.  They're much smaller than the invasive grey squirrels which have chased away the natives elsewhere.  Our little island has provided a haven for more than one endangered animal!  I'm happy to share my garden with our little red squirrels.

There's so much work to do that it's a little overwhelming.  I only tackle a bit each day so that it doesn't seem so onerous.  Some time in the near future, the pond needs seeing to.  I never got around to cleaning away the dying vegetation and it certainly doesn't look very inviting!  Ah well - another day!