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Spring is back and in full swing. Sorry for a lack of updates the past two weeks. I’ve been busy outside getting my garden prepped every chance I get. If its decent after work, I’m often out until it gets dark. I took this week off to try and get some more stuff done but the weather didn’t cooperate much.

So far I’ve been able to get two rows of each of my cold weather crops started, last Thursday and yesterday. I’ve also tested the soil and added some fertilizer as well as sulfur to adjust the pH back down to a normal level. Tests showed alkaline around 8.0 and my target is 6.5-7. Hopefully the sulfur I put down today will get washed in with the rain tonight and bring the soil back in line. I’ll have to test again in a few more weeks.

I also got my cold frames outside and moved my seedlings into them. I had started my seedlings inside almost 2 weeks ago and they’re starting to get big. I’ll be trimming them down to one plant in each pot soon. I’m hoping the sunlight will help them grow. Unfortunately, I still need to cover the cold frames with blankets one or two more times according to the latest 10 day forecast.

As usual, its now Friday of my week off and I havent’ accomplished much around the house. I have a few projects to do this weekend and hopefully I’ll be able to cross off one or two major things on my to-do list before I return to work next Monday.

Ryan Personal garden

Over the past week or so I’ve been busy prepping our vegetable garden. I’m using the area on the south side of my house which meant I needed to transplant some shrubs first. After I got the shrubs transplanted, I tilled the previous side garden bed and some of the yard. I ended up with a plot about 30 feet by 12 feet.

I was able to get out Tuesday this week and get some of the weeds raked out that were left over after tilling. I spread 20 bags of topsoil and tilled that under before it rained Thursday night. We got a good soaking rain last night and some more tonight hopefully. I do want to test the soil in another few days once the ground begins to dry up a bit.

Since its still too early for most plants, I have some peat pots inside to get things started in. In a few weeks I should be able to get things moved outside to my cold frames for another few weeks before its warm enough to transplant. I’m still in the planning stages of what’s going to go where and I need to finish soon since there are a few cold weather crops that I can get planted soon.

I also built a compost bin out of some old scrap wood. I’ll post more on that later as well as some photos of the garden.

Ryan Gardening diy, garden, vegetables