SHOP TALK: Preparing Your Garden Soil

Welcome back to Shop Talk here at The Featherweight Shop! We love our local chit chat with staff, gathering around the dinette table so-to-speak (because that is what we have!) and sharing with one another. In these segments, we exchange patterns, recipes, organizational ideas, history quips, gardening tips, crafty projects, and smiles about learning an old-fashioned way of doing things. Shop Talk is the fun tidbits of news!

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Image Source: Better Homes & Gardens

Today, we look at three easy steps to prepare your soil for a productive vegetable garden! Before we get started, let's take a look a few tips from CaliKim29 Home & Garden DIY:

Tips:

In cold climates, start prepping the garden beds as soon as the ground is thawed and can start working the ground with a shovel or a pitchfork.

Cover the garden bed with a large piece off plastic to solarize and warm up the soil. Summer veggies love to be planted in warm soil.

3 Steps to Prepare Soil:

1. Loosen the soil.

When loosening the soil 6 - 12 inches, take a pitchfork and vigorously work back and forth. Clean out old leaves and shredded leaves. Make sure to remove drip irrigation if you have this previously installed in your garden bed!

2. Remove the weeds & rocks.

This step makes sure the seedlings have room to grow while not having competition in the soil, such as rocks and weeds.

3. Amend and add nutrients back to the soil.

Add compost and worm casting to the soil. Compost is also known as "black gold" and can be made at home. A great tutorial can be found here.

Vintage Victory Garden Tip of the Week:

In the spring when seeds are sprouting,

Stir the land.

In the summer, nothing doubting.

Stir the land.

Stirring helps each little seed,

Stirring kills each little weed,

Stirring - let this be your creed:

Stir the land.