March 5, 2010

Planting broccoli when the soil can't be tilled

My garden soil does not dry out well until April or May. But I get some vegetables in the ground anyway. My six pack of broccoli is in the ground. The process is something like this. I dig six holes in a row, which will later be extended by planting seed. Since the soil is wet, it does not fall apart when I hit what I have dug up with the shovel. So I break up the soil by hand, pulling out the weedy ground cover and crumbling the clods back into the hole. Then I put a half a shovel of composted organic chicken manure.

This bag of manure is not completely composted. It's the about $3.00 a bag at my local nursery and has a lot of what looks like wood chips in it.

Nonetheless, it has more nurtrients than my garden soil at the moment so I use it. Once the soil is broken up and the manure mixed in, I make a little hole and pop the seedling in. Really very simple. The next day it really poured rain and the garden was too soggy to walk in, but when it dries up a little, I'll put a mulch around the seedling to keep the weeds down.

It feels good to have the first vegies in the ground.