Late Season Gardening

Harvest is in. Your fruits and vegetables have been canned and frozen. Frost covers the garden space. Garden season is over. Well, growing season is over. Gardening actually continues the year 'round. This year, I decided that I could use less lawn and park area and more space to grow food. I had plans to tear up a section of my front yard by removing sod and turning the soil. This is a very laborious process as I use handtools to accomplish this. Fortunately, a neighbor has put me onto a method of accomplishing the same thing with much less labor and time. You simply determine the area you wish to convert to garden and cut the grass down close to the bare earth, then cover with plastic, wood, fiberglass or anything that will keep the snow and rain off the ground. If you have good, living soil you will have worms in your ground. Those worms will travel through the protected soil in the winter, pulling the remnants of the grass underneath and eating it. This will also turn your soil, making it soft and loamy. The worms will also produce castings in your soil helping to fertilize it. In the spring add compost and sand, till your soil and you are ready to plant. Nice and easy.

The above method worked out very well for my neighbor over last winter and this spring. I'm trying it this winter. If it turns out to be a success, I'll use this method of creating garden space from now on, as it is a huge time saver. Another method I'll be using this winter and spring is the garden box. I have a bit of land that is rocky with just a few inches of topsoil over basalt bedrock. I also have a low-lying area that is too marshy to plant some springs. Garden boxes will create raised beds that will drain better in the marshy area and provide more topsoil in the rocky area. I can reclaim a good amount of land in this manner and grow a good deal more food.

Everything will be done in the most cost effective manner possible. I am making my own lumber for the boxes. Deer fences are being made from split rails and the fiberglass covering for my garden spaces are recycled material taken from the local dumpsters. Wood for making rails and lumber are harvested from trees in the National Forest. They are cut to eight foot lengths and hauled back to the homestead where they are split or sawed for their purpose. Operations will have to shut down very soon due to winter, but I am confident that spring will bring much improvements and more growing space to the homestead.

We will update our shop at http://northwoodstraders.ecrater.com next week. Blacksmithing tools will be added in the spring. Watch for one of a kind gift items by the end of November. Survival items and tools to be added next week.