Getting Ready to Plant
April 6, 2020
Due to still battling a migraine, I haven't been outside recently, to survey my garden, even though it looks beautiful out there today. I thought I would have had a chance today to go out and assess the garden area to see what sort of damage the winter might've caused it and what I need to do to start preparing it for planting. Unfortunately though I didn't get that chance today. Tomorrow is another day and the forecast for tomorrow mirror's that of today's, so maybe, hopefully, I'll be able to do at least a cursory inspection of it then. In order to know if the weed matting (a black material you can buy in rolls at a good nursery, that you can lay down to prevent weeds from taking over the garden - it has a 1 year rating, 5 year, 10 or 15 year rating and I think even a 50 year rating if I remember correctly) is alright or if I need to buy more pins to fix torn areas or what. I do know - as it's evident from our windows, that it needs to be cleaned off, because of all the leaves and other debris on it. So because I don't want it torn from a rake, I'll try to get my husband to blow it off with a leaf blower or failing that his air compressor hose. Then I'll have to try to find a way to remove last year's stems and roots from previously planted crops and ascertain where the perennial plants were planted and leave them there, while using other available areas for planting other crops. 🌱
The way you use that matting is you unroll it over the top of an already tilled and composted soil and pin it down so the wind doesn't take it and weeds can't creep under it (though they manage). Then you decide where you want what planted and cut appropriate openings for those plants. Last year I planted various things from seed and also from seedlings bought at nurseries. The seedlings were easy to gauge how big an opening to cut in the mat, to allow for planting, going by the size of the pot it was in, it was the seeds from packets would've posed a bit of a problem I suppose if I hadn't known how big those certain plants could get and how big an opening they'd need in order to grow through. So for my zucchini plants that I planted from seed, I cut a roughly 6 inch by 6 inch square opening per seed group and then spaced the next 6x6 inch square opening as far apart as indicated on the package for space between plants. For things like carrots and kale, I just cut a slit about an inch wide the full length of the row that I wanted for those plants. 🌿
When I planted both the seeds and the seedlings, I planted them using the soil already there, with a bit of compost and I also fertilized them with an organic fertilizer that I bought at the nursery when I bought the matting (ask the nursery clerk which is the best fertilizer to use for whatever it is you want to grow). Then if there was no rain in the immediate forecast I gave the planted garden areas a good drenching. After that, it was pretty easy going, just spraying the plants with an organic pesticide a couple times during the growing season, coupled with giving them more fertilizer every few weeks and making sure the plants don't wilt - by watering them when there's insufficient rainfall. Then you harvest the crops when they're ripe and enjoy. But as I really don't like having to plant every year, I've tried to find various perennials that I could plant, that would just sprout up and grow on their own, year after year, as long as I take care of them, while they do. There's a list of perennials on the page dealing with gardening in SW Quebec, that grow in this area. Just click on Gardening in the right hand side column and it'll display the pages that talk about gardening here.⛈
Here's a list of some potentially helpful books on the subject for beginners, use the "longfiles" link for all the English books listed here: 📕
Gardening: Essential Beginners Guide to Organic Vegetable Gardening & Growing Organic Vegetables From Home - Vol 1 - epub format
Greenhouse Gardening: A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Grow Foods and Plants for Beginners - azw3 format
Pour ceux qu'ils veut: Un carre potager, c'est facile !
