What have you done for garden prep so far?

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Thank you! I am a beginner harder with one raised bed... but one day I hope to have much more.
Most of my newer raised beds are lower to the ground... just one treated 4x6 board high. Such a bed is much easier to build & much cheaper. So as opposed to building the bed up from ground level & filling with new soil, I simply remove the grass inside the short bed, then dig down around a foot deep to loosen the soil & then mix in soil additives, such as sand (if needed) and organic matter (maybe bags of potting soil). I use short pieces of treated 4x4 in each corner to screw the boards to. If your ground is not level, you can use the 4x4s as legs to raise up part of the bed. Just put a level on the boards to determine where to screw in the boards. Depending on the length of the bed, I will run a treated board in the middle across the width of the beds to keep the sides from bulging out (see empty bed in last pic). No need to set in concrete or to dig a hole for the 4x4 legs. Once you fill the beds and some soil spills out, that bed is locked in place.

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This is the time of year that one can help their garden soil out greatly, without planting a cover crop, by adding a layer of leaves to their garden. Best part is you don't have to do all the hard work of raking leaves. Just go into town & fill your truck with bags of leaves sitting on the curb. In Memphis, the bags have to be free of sticks and other debris and have to be in clear bags. Just perfect for the gardener. Also lots of communities have the vacuum trucks that suck up piles of leaves from the curb. They do a basic grind of the leaves to pack more in. I got one of the trucks to dump the ground leaves at the back of my company's parking lot & hauled them down to the farm in the back of my truck.

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Not food garden related but last year I let the first freeze get to the Wife's elephant ears and they came back in the spring . Iv been told to cut the leaves, stalks down before frost and pile on top of the plants to insulate them and they come back each year . Anyone in the freeze zone have elephant ears ?
 
All the food is now out of the ground, processed and stored for winter. This is our second year of growing our own food and we learnt a lot from the previous year. We managed to increase the amount of food we produced and judging on last years numbers we should have enough stored this year to last through the whole year. I keep a spreadsheet of all the harvests and weather conditions which was very useful to compare the results. Last year was wet and we got lots more fruit and this year was dry and hot and the root veg was a little smaller in size but the tomatoes and cucumbers grew very well. It is definitely is a good idea to have a well balanced selection of food to safeguard against various weather conditions and bugs that may attack the crops. Next years plan is getting some of the meat and dairy going. I was thinking goat, chickens and then hunting for deer and rabbit.
 
Its a little early yet. There is no visible dirt. Just snow everywhere. I hope to finish my mostly underground greenhouse this year. It has an insulated and heated room with grow lightes. My goal is tomatos and peppers in January.
 
I planted these from seeds I harvested last year from some volunteer collards in the back yard. I made five rows and just sprinkled the seeds down the rows not knowing how many would germinate. When they started coming up all down the tops of the rows I realized I needed a LOT more room.

At first I just lengthened the rows on both ends, and transplanted some of the sprouts to the new ends of the rows, but that was far from adequate. I have since made two new rows and have transplanted about half the sprouts in total. I'm still going to have to thin the plants once I figure out which ones are the healthiest. I'll probably harvest a lot of young collards before the final thinning.
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I have done absolutely nothing out in the garden since last year, but the bug has really been biting. We had to stop by Tractor Supply and they already have tomato plants out to sell. The sun is actually supposed to make an appearance tomorrow so I may just get out there and start tilling. The weather forecast calls for no rain after tomorrow morning for the rest of the week. Just hoping I don't get stuck and have a repeat of last year. With everything going on with work, granny, & hunny's up coming surgery, I will not be doing it as big as I normally do. I just want and need a few things in my life.
 
I have done absolutely nothing out in the garden since last year, but the bug has really been biting. We had to stop by Tractor Supply and they already have tomato plants out to sell. The sun is actually supposed to make an appearance tomorrow so I may just get out there and start tilling. The weather forecast calls for no rain after tomorrow morning for the rest of the week. Just hoping I don't get stuck and have a repeat of last year. With everything going on with work, granny, & hunny's up coming surgery, I will not be doing it as big as I normally do. I just want and need a few things in my life.

I'm dog sitting the test of the week, so I am going to use the time to start some tomato seeds. The earth doesn't get to 60° here for outdoor planting until the end of April/first of May. We have a few pretty weekends in March and people run to the nurseries to buy plants then they all end up frozen.

Patience grasshopper.

It is almost time to plant my cold crops. I can't get them to start indoors this year.
 
Normally I would already have my cool season crop in. . . I'm further south than you though. I hate it when we get the occasional freeze in May and I'm scrambling to cover and protect. That's only been once in the last 15 years that I can remember, but can happen. Very frustrating. Enjoy your dog sitting ;).

well it's still raining this morning so it looks like I won't be filling today. . . Weather forecast was only an eighth of an inch but it will be more than that for sure. I guess I will have to catch up on housework in my free time today and maybe work on granddaughters quilt. I'm only scheduled one more day this week at work but have a feeling I will be getting a text closer to the weekend. I kinda feel like they can use me now, but after Hunny has his surgery March 12th they can forget any extra hours.
 
I have done absolutely nothing out in the garden since last year, but the bug has really been biting. We had to stop by Tractor Supply and they already have tomato plants out to sell. The sun is actually supposed to make an appearance tomorrow so I may just get out there and start tilling. The weather forecast calls for no rain after tomorrow morning for the rest of the week. Just hoping I don't get stuck and have a repeat of last year. With everything going on with work, granny, & hunny's up coming surgery, I will not be doing it as big as I normally do. I just want and need a few things in my life.

I can't believe I haven't even done my fall cleanup. We've just had too much rain all Fall and Winter.
 
The wife and I have decided to cut back on the size of our garden this year. A big garden is just more work than we want. She has several raised beds with herbs and asparagus that she might expand on some. But the rest of the garden will be smaller. Of course that's easy to say now.
In the orchard we have space for 6 more fruit trees, more blackberries, strawberries, blueberries and grapes.
We're going to try starting some seeds in the root cellar this spring too.
Right now there's over 6 feet of snow in the garden so it'll be awhile before we do anything other than planing.
 
Well I had every good intentions this morning. After I fed I went straight out into the garden to start working and after almost an hour got a phone call. . . After taking granny to the doctors and testing I come home with a couple hours to start dinner, feed and then back over to her house. This is my new world now. On the plus side I am almost done with crocheting the baby blanket for our renters at the big house.
 

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