I cannot find the meme, but I read one recently that said something to the effect of – When summer comes I go outside, close the door, and pretend the house is clean. That’s pretty much me. Just kidding, I do get the chores done, but I notice that my house isn’t as well kept in the summer as it is in the winter.

My whole summer is not spent gardening, we love to hike, we work with my husband, we go adventuring. But in the spring, it starts off with the garden. I never really enjoyed gardening growing up, what kid enjoys weeding? But the older I get, the more I have learned to enjoy it. I also think the way the food prices have risen that it helps me enjoy gardening a little more as well!

This year has taken an exceptionally long time to get the garden in. I have been doing a lot of reading about no till gardening as well as keeping the ground covered to keep the weeds down, so I have been being more meticulous about how I have started my garden this year.

I can’t say I totally went no till. While I didn’t use a tiller, I did turn over the top about 3 inches of soil, trying to get as many weeds out of the garden as possible before I started. This has been a time consuming prospect. When we till the garden we’re done with the tilling, making rows, and planting in about 4-6 hours. The problem I have with that is that it doesn’t remove any weeds, just redistributes them and they come back with a vengeance.

I have about 3/4 of the garden turned, fertilized, and planted now, and it’s taken almost 20 hours with 4 more rows to go. But, I’m hoping that what I’ve done this year will make each subsequent year quite a bit easier, with less weeding and less watering needed.

Although this has been a lot more work this year, as I was weeding a row yesterday, it was so quiet and peaceful. The birds were chirping and singing, the sun was shining, there was a very slight breeze, just enough to be cooling. It was so beautiful, and I just enjoyed my time outside playing in the dirt. It was also nice not to have any other priorities (well, the house, but we’re ignoring that for now), so I could just sit quietly and enjoy.

Last years garden was not nearly so productive as we’ve had in years past. I think that we had too much lime, almost no sunny days, and way too much rain, so that many of the plants were not as productive as we had hoped. I am hoping, with the many things I have learned over the winter, and having the correct nutrients in the garden, that this year will be much more productive and that we have a great harvest.