A Few Things to Knock Out in the Garden

The short days of winter mean that by the time I get home, it's dark.  Due to darkness, there's not really anything to do until the weekends because you can't see anything.  When weekends come, there's a lot of catching up to do.  This past weekend I had a big on-going project that I've been working on for years now.  Each year a good family friend rakes up her yard and gives us roughly 20 BIG garbage bags full of leaves.  Instead of taking them to the dump, I take them to the garden.

Each year I dig trenches about a foot and a half deep in the garden and pour the leaves into the trench.  I stomp the leaves down into the bottom of the trench, throw some cow manure in the trench so that the bacteria begins to decompose the leaves, and then I pour more leaves into the hole.  Finally, I cover the leaf filled trench with soil.  A couple of things happen here:  First the organic matter loosens the soil, adding fertility and a habitat for earthworms.  You ought to see the earthworms in the areas that I filled with last year's leaves!  Adding the leaves and manure and covering with soil raises the level of the garden, leaving it high and dry when it rains.  The buried leaves act as a storehouse for moisture during drought, giving the plants sustenance during dry times.

My next area of work was one I am not crazy about doing- WEEDING!  The winter weeds and grasses will take over the garden very quickly, especially if I can only work the garden on weekends.  One must remain vigilant to stay on top of things.  In the photo below you can see a few carrot plants on rows dominated by weeds.  Time to get busy!

Weeding is a tedious job.  Due to the close proximity of the weeds next to the plants, it is a task that is done by hand.  You have to be real careful not to uproot vegetable seedlings.  In the photo above, the carrots are almost completely hidden by the leaves.  In the photo below, the weeds have been removed, leaving only the carrot seedlings.

Now that we've removed the grasses, the seedling has no competition for soil nutrients and water.  The plant is also able to let the sun's rays reach it, which results in faster growth.

While pulling weeds, I happened across some seedlings growing in the garden that were NOT weeds.  There were seven nice tomato seedlings that came up volunteer ~ perhaps from compost?  Anyway, I dug them up and potted them. 

All of the tomato plants are very healthy.  I will attempt to keep them alive during the winter months and then transplant in the garden once it warms up.

I normally plant my tomato, pepper, and eggplant seedlings on January 1st and then transplant in the spring.  Finding these plants was a great gift.  If I can successfully get these plants through the winter, I'll have a great head start and hopefully, early tomatoes.