On Tuesday morning my helper friend was here and I wanted to get the inoculants moved out of the Big garden and spread as much as possible in the Small garden. So we did that first thing.
I occurred to us that perhaps doing the annual soil test on the Small garden BEFORE mulching it or spreading inoculants would be smart. There was nothing growing in it. I like to do the tests when things had totally stopped for the year, in November. But it seemed prudent to do it early this year.
So he got the soil for the test and I followed behind him spreading inoculants. We had exactly enough from the Big garden to put down a good cover. I hope this helps jump start the soil repopulation killed by the black plastic.
Once we’d finished in the Small garden the next thing I wanted to get done was mulching the already planted garlic. But again, we decided getting both soil tests ready to send together was a good idea.
So he loaded up my buckets and I set to mulching garlic while he collected the 15 samples needed to compose a soil test. We got about 8’ of mulching done and it started to rain so we quit, picked up, and went inside to work.
The rain had quit by 11AM but I was busy with inside jobs and resting until after lunch. I went back out by myself and started on the Small garden. (I need help mulching garlic with my knee as it is…)
I finished laying down the mulch from the small stack of bales and with my son’s help pulled the black plastic off. On Wednesday my intern will be here and we will drag the 2 pieces over the bank and clean them off.
I had to finish weeding the inside where the hay stack had been and rake up the leaves and wood in that area before I could start mulching.
I put the mulch on the right side of the garden back down. It had been moved to get inoculants under it. I left a strip for planting garlic and started mulching from the back forward.
It’s nice to see something that encourages life instead of something that kills it in the Small garden. So not a fan of black plastic in gardens for this reason, but this year, I felt I really needed to resort to it, and I had the time to reverse the damage by planting time next year.
Late Monday afternoon the farmer arrived with the wagon of mulch hay. He said there was something in the vicinity of 130 bales on there. He had just enough room to make it up the driveway with the wagon loaded so full.
My intern will be here on Wednesday and we will collect pallets and lay them out in the corner of the parking area. We’ll clean the black plastic and get it up there, as it will be covering the hay.
The 2 young men will be here around 11AM on Wednesday and unload the wagon and stack the hay. Then we will get it covered. The farmer will be back later for the wagon.
I’m also hoping to get more garlic mulching done with my intern, but we will see….