Tuesday, March 17, 2015

happy st patrick's day - turning my pea bed soil

I was able to get a shovel into the soil of my pea bed yesterday. Most of the soil is thawed and draining and the bed is no longer filled with mud. There's still some ice underneath at the edges. Especially the south edge where snow blocks a bit of sunlight. Some of the ice I was able to break and turn to expose to the sun, a bit of it was too solid for the shovel. I turned under most the scrawny cover of rye grass. I think this turning will help to get the bed fully thawed.

newly dug pea bed IMG_0657
I'm thinking maybe next week for planting. But I might get impatient and plant a small row sooner than that. I think I'll plant it one row at a time, maybe weekly, to see how it goes. Its just a small dug out bed and hopefully more soil will show up soon. But maybe not. I probably should get down there this week and shovel out more of my garden - my kale, escarole and onion beds.

newly dug pea bed IMG_0662newly dug pea bed with skippy IMG_0661

The straw bale seems to be doing well. It's soaking wet now from our rain and snow. I couldn't really get my hand into the top of it to see if its warming up at all.

(Note the green text for this post - not much green in the pictures, so I put it in the font - for St Patrick's day.)

7 comments:

blueberry1946 said...

To add to your green text, you were preparing beds to grow green peas!

kathy said...

Oh yeah. I should have had some Irish beer while I wrote it!

MH said...

Soil is looking good. I say shovel the whole garden out. Unless some heat wave is on the way...

kathy said...

Well, you have a plan to keep me busy. And I was wondering to do with all my free time tomorrow. Shovel the whole garden. And why not!

I can't say I know if there is nice weather coming as I'm refusing to look at the Forecast. I suspdct its not so good. Maybe something about snow Friday.

I wonder if I can get our snowblower down to the garden. When I dug out the half bed by hand it was hard, even several weeks ago, because I threw up and over the fence. Did not want to pile it on a bed. The snow now is 1.5 ft of heavy icy stuff.

Hmm. I will see what I can do,...,,

tina said...

Just wanted to say you are an inspiration! Over the past few weeks have read most of your gardening posts ... fun to read, lots of good practical info. Love your organic approach. Just started some seeds indoors on the Ides of March (ha!) & most are sprouting nicely. Our snow melted over the past few days under lots of sun & warmer temps (Zone 5b, S Ontario). Hope you get lots of warm sunshine soon & that all your snow melts!
Good luck with your garden this year.

kathy said...

Thanks tina

kathy said...

I didn't get time to shovel out the rest of my garden today :-( I got my chicken coop cleaned, but no garden work. Maybe tomorrow. I definitely want to do some indoor planting tomorrow.