Another boring garden update

Please forgive me if this isn't scintillating. I worked a little harder and longer than was probably wise today and I am now so exhausted that I lack the focus to write (or even waste time) effectively.

I love my days off. I really do. I usually get so much done in the garden and often get a chance to homeschool with Jack. This weekend, although I had four days, I wasn't as productive as I'd hoped.

That was largely due to having some 'delightful' summer virus or another that sapped me dry for the first two days. I mostly slept and sat around wishing I were sleeping.

However by Sunday I was feeling much better. We went off to the petting zoo with Grandpa John, and then came back and started gardening. Mostly weeding and feeding with manure tea (Cow Poop Soup, as Jack named it), though Rod did take the chance to dig a beautiful bed for the cruciferous vegetables.

The mosquitoes got too demanding before he was finished, so he didn't backfill but he got the lion's share of the digging done. That made it easier to get out and get started this morning.

The plan for today was to finish the cabbage patch and then do another small row of tomatoes.

But first, Rod had to go out in search of some more manure, since we'd used the last of it last night.

(If you're just tuning in, I am doing something that resembles french-intensive/biodynamic/permaculture gardening. When I prepare a bed, I dig a three foot hole or trench and layer it back with soil, alfalfa, manure, and rock dust, plus whatever else I have on hand in the way of amendments. It's work intensive the first year, but my results have been good and the vegetables are *so* sweet! Besides, it doesn't have to be done every year. After the first year, just adding more amendments to the top is all that's required.)

Anyway, Rod grabbed the manure--and then he picked up a load of compost. We had discussed it every year, but we hadn't used it before. Valerie has such good results with it, though, and we can't afford some of the more expensive amendments I have used in the past, so it seemed like a good plan to give it a shot.

Jack and I did some more weeding and then gave everyone a mid-afternoon deep drink of water while Rod was away.

And then we did some harvesting of herbs and berries...and finally Rod got back.
We finished the cabbage bed, added a row-cap bed of more tomatoes, and put down a compost mulch on all the finished beds. Now it's looking more like a real garden. One thing i wasn't expecting was the aesthetic improvement a compost mulch made. It was somehow much more emotionally satisfying than the sandy dirt to look at! I'll be keeping compost on my list -- this stuff is great!