Garden Update: Before, After, After

It seems that Thanksgiving is, for me, more than just a time for feasting with loved ones.  Not that I have any problem with the whole feasting part of it.

Say, er, goodbye to Falstaff. He was one of the “lucky” survivors of the 50 turkey poults I saw arrive at Carlea Farm back in July. Running an obstacle course of disease, owls, hawks and coyotes, 27 of the little buggers made it through to November. After four months of slow growth on pasture, gobbling up grass, weeds, bugs and some supplementary feed, Falstaff made the ultimate sacrifice so that we could enjoy a traditional harvest meal together.

As you can see, Miss Chef honored his sacrifice by making him both beautiful and delicious. Thank you, Falstaff.

Now it just so happens that the month of our harvest celebration is also the month best suited for me to ensure future harvests. Even with my first experimental fall plantings in place, the garden bed is mostly dormant right now.

In the back, hiding my slow-growing broccoli plants, is my jerry-rigged row cover.  The material was purpose bought, but the posts are leftover from my raised-bed projects, and the edges are held down by a motley collection of rocks, pvc pipe sections and spare lumber. Most of the greenery you see is herbs—lavender, rosemary, oregano, sage and thyme. There are a few carrot fronds hanging out; they can survive all but the most intensely cold winters. As the trees lost their leaves, I used them to cover the soil in a couple inches of free, natural mulch. Some of my neighbors even helped out, though they didn’t know it.

By the way, did I mention Miss Chef recently bought a pickup truck?

Not only is it super handy to haul home seven large bags of leaves plucked from a neighbor’s curb, it also serves perfectly to gather up some black gold for the garden. As I had two years ago, it was time to head on out to my favorite goat farm, Bosky Acres.

Michele, my favorite Goat Lady, has a herd of about 50 diary goats who provide her with the primary ingredient for soft goat cheese and feta. They also provide an infinite supply of manure, which gets piled up in a back pasture, where it slowly breaks down into rich compost, complete with lots of earthworms. Last time I took advantage of this free garden booster, I had to shovel it into double-bagged trash liners and load them into my trunk. I barely had enough to cover the whole bed with a scant inch of it. With the truck, I was determined to do it right this time.

I had to back Miss Chef’s shiny new truck into a back pasture, next to this grass-covered mound. (You can see the big, open-air goat barn in the background, and Michele’s house on the right.) I didn’t want to transplant all that grass into my garden, so first I had to pull back as much as I could by hand. And here I thought my weeding chores were mostly done for the year.

Then it was time to start shoveling.  And shoveling. I spend most of my days sitting in front of a keyboard, so my arms, shoulders and back were quick to let me know they weren’t feeling up to a whole lot of this activity.

I had to stop for a break after a while. I posted the above photo to Facebook with the quip, “Right about now, I have to ask myself if stamp collecting wouldn’t have been a better choice for a hobby.” One of my northern friends commented almost immediately on the sunlight, which kind of put my aching muscles into perspective. So I got back to shoveling without further whining.

I stopped before I was completely tired and sore, because I knew there was only more shoveling on the other end of this trip. It was hard to judge from the spread-out pile in the bed just how much I had, but I was pretty confident it would at least cover the main garden bed. I wasn’t sure if it would be enough for a couple other side-projects I had in mind.

The truck was parked uphill on soft dirt, and I had a little trouble getting moving. Fortunately, my years of winter driving in Ohio transferred well to Carolina clay. I backed up to a more level starting place and pulled out of there slow and steady, just like up an ice-covered driveway I once knew well.

Of course, I did stop to say hi to The Girls who provided me with such lovely fertilizer. Goats are curious creatures, though, and hard to take pictures of.

“Is that phone tasty?”

Back home, I got out my trusty orange wheelbarrow and got to work. As I spread the compost over my bed, I started getting pretty excited when I saw how rich and fertile it looked. I also realized that I’d shoveled more than I’d realized, and I definitely had enough to put a good two or three inches over the entire garden.

You know you’re a gardener if that picture makes you jealous. However, nature doesn’t like bare earth, so I pulled from my bank of dry leaves to mulch it over once more.

Now, after two hours of driving and as much time shoveling, it looks just like it did before!  If you look at that white pot half-buried in the bed, though, you can tell that the dirt level is higher. But that’s about the only sign of all my hard work. At least for now. I’m hoping that come spring I’ll be able to see the difference in happier, more productive peas, broccoli and carrots.

That was all on the week before Thanksgiving. The day after, my black Friday wasn’t focused on hunting down deals on consumer electronics. It was spent shoveling the rest of that black gold onto some other beds, and creating new ones around our remaining blackberry plant and at the base of my favorite tree out front.

No more weed-whip marks around this baby’s tender trunk. And yup, that’s the truck that made it all possible. Right now, though, I’m mostly thankful I got this job done.