Tilling the Garden

This year I have decided not to have the garden plot harrowed. My thinking is to maintain the same planting areas as last year. This will conserve the soil improvements made last year as well as the garden layout. There are some drawbacks to this plan, but overall I hope it will save some time and effort. This is especially important given the slope of our plot.

Today I put in an hour and a half worth of hoeing. That equates to around a third of the job done. It would probably go a lot quicker and easier if I was in better shape! :(

When I setup the garden layout last year I pulled some soil out of the growing areas to create raised paths through the garden. This created a defined set of walking areas that shed rain into the growing areas and not the other way around. During the course of the year the definition between path and growing area declined due to erosion and foot traffic. Part of the hoeing process is to re-define the edge between path and growing area.

Being New England, the winter has grown a good crop of rocks. I pulled out a 5 gallon bucket full of rocks today. And that was without being very meticulous about picking them up. Although it would be easy to leave the rocks there, I do believe that by pulling them out, slowly the growing areas will become less and less rocky. Each year this should make the hoeing a little bit easier.