Garden Level Zero

I apologize for my long absence from the blog! It hasn't been for lack of desire, simply from lack of time. Being a first-time homeowner is tougher than we had imagined. And there was so much to do, not just to move and unpack all of our stuff, but to clean, fix and repair everything in the house that needed it.

Then the heat hit. Weeks and then months of searing temps, making it too difficult to get started on the gardens and other projects here at Rainbow's Acre.

Now that it has cooled down to the 70s though, we're eager to get started on our gardening plans. So, this is garden level zero, because we have a lot of work to do!

Owning an acre of land is more overwhelming than  I would have thought, so we're breaking the yard into zones and working on a zone at a time.

Our first zone of attack is behind the house, actually a small strip of land between the house and garage. There is a raised garden bed already there, but it is choked with weeds and blueflag. We are working on clearing out all the weeds and the thick blueflag rhizomes that look for all the world like giant fingers.

The original plan was the surround the bed with straw bales then put some old windows we found in the shed on top to turn it into a cold frame. Unfortunately, our state was plagued by massive wildfires this summer and thousands of acres of hay fields were burnt to a crisp, making hay bales prohibitively expensive ($12-15 each, rather than the usual $3). So we're exploring alternative materials to bank the sides so we'll have a cold frame just steps from the kitchen door.

What are you doing to get your garden ready for the next growing season?