Gardening Report December 10, 2021

We’ve put our beds to bed for the winter.

Well, two of ‘em, that is.

Our garden enclosure has six beds (imagine a capital H as our walkway with the beds in the middle and on either side).

We are doing much better this winter than last, when rodents literally devoured everything we planted except for a handful of lettuce leaves we got early in the season.

We’ve spent something in the neighborhood of two grand to build the enclosure, reinforce the anti-gopher barrier, redo the watering system, and amend the soil so we damn well better get some good results this year!

The two middle beds grew tomatoes and cucumbers this summer plus a few herbs and flowers to encourage bees to come in and pollinate.

The soil in all the beds is too densely packed for plant roots to sink down deep, and while our summer harvest was okay, Soon-ok opted to plant cover crops in the middle beds to replenish the soil.

Cover crops are a variety of plants that help restore nutrient and beneficial bacteria and fungi to the soil.  While some are edible their main purpose is to replenish the soil, then provide mulch by being cut down and turned over in anticipation of the next crop.

We’ve cut down the cover crops and draped plastic tarps over them, letting them return to the soil underneath so we can (hopefully!) have better results next summer.

© Buzz Dixon