We’ve been blessed here with decent soil to start with, but something we’ve done that has been inexpensive free and really good for our garden is to rake up all the leaves from our large maple trees and spread them over the vegetable garden to sit during the winter months.
Come through the garden gate. I made that gate myself to keep the cats (sort of) and the dogs and bunnies out. What do you think? My backyard will never be elegant, I’m afraid, but we’re very content with it and with making improvements slowly, as we can afford.
Pay no mind to the fence-in-shambles behind the garden. It’ll be replaced some day in the hopefully not-too-distant future.
The three to four inches of leaves all over the garden form a nice insulating “carpeting” that brings the earthworms to the top. They work the soil for us and there’s no need for any tilling. Once the leaves are raked back, I just use a hand trowel or shovel to dig up and work the soil a bit to get each row ready for planting.
Every single shovelful of soil has many earthworm, up to a dozen or more! It’s really good soil made better by the decaying leaves.
We rake the leaves up into elongated mounds between the planting rows. It gives us a place to walk between the rows and also provides mulch to use around the plants as the seasons pass and the weather gets hotter and hotter.
In addition to the leaves, we add homemade compost to the soil and work it in throughout the planting months. Our “compost pile” may be different from that of others. I’ll post about it some time soon.
Oh, one more thing. Hubby has marked off the area for my little shed! It’s a potting shed-type building. It will be everything from a room to let my chickens run around in from time to time as a treat, to a place to pot up and overwinter plants, to a hiding place for Princess of the Universe and me to observe nature.
Lynn
for you to leave a comment, but you can also e-mail me at lynn AT thehealthyhomeschool.com
Oh, Lynn, I am drooling for gardening! I love your not so perfect garden, it encourages me so much with my not so perfect too. I always make/ compost too but always avoid leaves as I heard it so acid but you are making me think I may need to rethink that. Check out my blog and the wonderful sewing adventures damsel and I have had. Blessings to you. Can’t wait to see your compost blog, we should all do one and see each others, I love that.
Oh Lynn,
Everything looks so good; I love the gate and and shabby chic fence! The dandelions looks rather yummy, too!
We would bury our compost too, but the garden is pretty far to heft a big heavy bucket out there, so we have a pile.
I hope the shed gets done quickly; I’d love to see pictures!
Love,
Marqueta
Love the gate…our garden is not
“elegant” either, but I love having it in my life!
I’m green with envy over your shed..we need one too, but here in the burbs..there are too many hurdles to jump through to get one.
Permits..etc.
oh my gracious.. i have been laboriously raking my maple leaves out to the curb for disposal, then paying a fortune for mulch. o silly me! well, not next year! ☺
and your fence in shambles looks quite picturesque;)
Thank you for sharing your wonderful worms with us.
Last year I started gardening in really poor soil, but after laying quite a bit of peat moss, compost and, of course, leaves, the soil is beautiful!
And yes, full of red, squirmy worms
blessings,
Lady M
I like your rustic garden plot! I think uber-elegant garden gates, fences and frivolities tend to draw away from the natural, intended beauty of all the green, growing things anyway(IMHO)! Yours is perfectly sweet, I especially love the simple wreath hanging to the side and the spade standing at the ready. It seems to me from perusing your lovely blog that you have more creativity in your baby finger than Martha Stewart in all her corporate glory! Happy gardening!
In Oklahoma the leaves never deteriorate–they just lay there. They have to be mixed with soil, grass clipping and veggie peels. Last fall I had a wheelbarrow full of clay type soil from digging a pond and I had hubby bury some kitchen scraps in it and then covered it with a big metal washtub. I had the best soil this Spring! I am new to composting too!
Tonya, I think I’ve read something like that about leaves as well, but I’d also heard of people using them with success. We’ve been doing this for about three years now. The tomatoes last year weren’t too shabby. http://www.innatelygray.com/images/tomato_83008.jpg
I enjoyed checking out your sewing adventures!!
Marqueta, I want that shed done NOW.
We’re doing it as we can afford. We were going to get some material this week but opted to pay more on blls this week. The rain helped us decide that, so maybe next week!
Kate, I don’t mind the rustic look, though sometimes I do get tired of the fence!
Diane, we have always raked our leaves up for the kids to play on, then they’d eventually make it to the curb for pickup. It’s been only a few years that they’ve been going on the garden. We put more this year than ever so we’ll see how it goes.
Lady M, we’ve had the same results with our composting and leaves. I’m really excited to see how our garden grows this year.
Rachel, you are so kind! My head may not fit through the door after a comment like that.
Becky, the leaves here are not totally deteriorated yet, but they are breaking down pretty quickly. We’ve been composing for awhile – longer than we’ve been using the leaves.
I’ll be sure and post updates!
Lynn
It is amazing how everything is so green there! It is actually cold up here today and rainy. I have come once again to enjoy you photos and writings of spring and your garden and now potting shed! yeah!
Patricia