The Three Bear's Scale

The Gardening version of the tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears:

You can have too much soil, not enough soil and just the right amount of soil in your bed.

TOO much soil in the bed means any rain that comes down will just run off and not sink in. Plus, where will you put the extra dirt when you dig holes to plant your veggies. (No one at the garden has this problem at the moment.)

NOT enough soil in your bed means there isn't enough to keep the roots of your plants healthy and happy. The bed in the picture below definitely doesn't have enough soil in it and needs to be brought up pronto.

The best way to bring up your soil level is to amend it with organic matter BEFORE you plant any of your spring vegetables. Any kind of composted material is excellent. You can buy composted manure, mushroom compost, etc or if you have leaves that have composted that works as well. The more organic matter you amend your bed with, the better your vegetables will grow.

 

Incorporating composted material is the key at this time of year. Don't use "fresh" leaves, grass etc. You don't want to tie the nitrogen up right before you put in plants. Chuck put a layer of chopped up leaves on top of his bed in the fall and by the time he plants his spring crop, most of the leaves will have decomposed and enriched the soil.

Not enough soil in the bed

JUST the right amount of soil means the water won't run off and instead will soak into the soil. Also, all your plants will have plenty of space for their roots and will be happy to grow.

JUST the right amount.

 

 

Grubs in the Garden

Dalita has been thoroughly turning, amending and refreshing her garden bed to prepare it for spring planting. She has found quite a few grubs like the ones in this picture. I know it is easier to just fluff a little and then plant the new plants but these are undesirable grubs and need to come out.

There are two ways you can fluff your bed - with a shovel or digging fork while the dirt/soil stays in the bed or by putting a tarp down and taking all the soil out and then putting it back in.

While you are fluffing your soil, be sure and watch for all the pecans the squirrels planted this fall. If you don't remove the pecans now, you'll be removing baby pecan trees all spring and summer.

The BEST way to remove the grubs is by hand picking. If you use Sevin you will kill all your good bugs and critters like the earthworms which have hopefully started moving into your bed. Sevin is not organic at all and kills everything.

                  Thanks Dalita for sending me this picture to share with everyone.