WAKE-UP YOUR GARDEN BY GIVING IT 3 YEARS WORTH OF FREE ORGANIC FERTILIZER.
I love, love, love Spring–the promise of new life, the beginning of beauty in the gardens and a hint of warm, sunny-summer days. Spring gets me excited about getting out and getting dirty in my gardens.Today is “getting the garden ready” day. Come along with me and let’s do it. I am excited to teach you how to fertilize your garden for the next 3 years without using any chemical fertilizers. I know it sounds too good to be true, but it is true and part of my SIS (simple is smart) method. LET’S DO IT!
This page contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click a link, I may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.
My early spring garden is not impressive in the least. It’s still empty and messy. It’s full of old dead leaves, weeds and dormant plants. However, there are tiny hints of new life here and there, and to the trained eye, there is great promise of all the bounty to come in the upcoming weeks and months.
The foundation of a vibrant and productive garden is proper soil preparation in the spring. Let’s dig in now and get the garden ready to receive all the seeds and plants that will be planted.
I hate weeding. When I was a kid, one of my chores was weeding. UGH. No more weeding for me. I cover my garden with a professional-grade weed block fabric. This weed block fabric allows the rain and moisture to penetrate through it, while preventing weed growth. It is guaranteed for 5 years. However, I have had mine on the garden for 10 years now! Every 3 years, I pull back this fabric and expose the soil, so I can add nutrients in the form of compost to the ground.
Farmer Fred (my husband) has created a massive pile of compost for me. He gets truckloads of untreated wood chips and puts them into big piles affectionately named, “Mt. Chipmore” and “Tree Crumb Hill”, where they rot down and become black gold (aka compost). Yup, there’s gold in them-thar-hills.
Rx for Waking Up Your Garden
1. Roll back the weed block fabric.
2. Add the compost. Farmer Fred hops on his Kubota tractor and brings me enough compost to cover the whole garden with about 4 inches of rich, rotted-down compost.
3. Rake the compost evenly over the surface.
4. Rototill it all in. The plants are saying “YUM” already.
5. Put the weed block fabric back in place.
6. Time to get planting. In case you didn’t notice, I just fertilized and weeded my garden for the next 3 years and it is all organic. Now that is the SIS way to get an organic garden ready. Wait, did I hear you say how does that compost last for 3 years?
Wait, did I hear you say how does that compost last for 3 years? Here is how: I space my rows 3 feet apart and each year I shift the week block over by 12 inches, so the next year’s plants get fresh compost. In the above picture, it is 12 inches between each yellow line, another SIS method for figuring out where the rows should go. I also make sure I change the locations of each type of vegetable every year (rotate my crops).
I wrote an in-depth, downloadable e-article called, “Making Organic Compost. The art of Magic Mulch.” if you would like a copy email me at doctorjo@growwithdoctorjo.com In the article, I tell you exactly how I compost and how and where you can get the wood chips for free (if you want to make your own black gold)
Pop on over to my social media sites where you’ll find exclusive Doctor Jo’s daily pictures of what’s new in my gardens or what new recipe I’m creating in my kitchen. Make sure you click the like button, share and subscribe. I love your comments, so let me know what you think.
I simply couldn’t go away your web site before suggesting that I actually enjoyed the usual information a person supply on your guests?
Is going to be back ceaselessly in order to check up on new posts I visited many blogs however
the audio quality for audio songs present at this web site
is in fact marvelous. Greetings from California! I’m bored to tears at work so I decided to browse your site on my iphone during lunch break.
I love the info you present here and can’t wait to take a
look when I get home. I’m surprised at how quick your blog loaded on my
phone .. I’m not even using WIFI, just 3G ..
Anyways, very good blog! https://samsung.com
Hi Frank: I am delighted you discovered my blog. Thanks for your marvelous endorsement. Please do check back often.