shoveling, anyone?

Dear Readers,

Things I learned today:

1) Shovels work

2) How to fill a gas can: just like you would fill your car’s gas tank

3) That if you (accidentally) shovel a worm in half, it might just live through the experience

Guess what! Guess what! Tilling has begun!!!! Check it out:

The rototiller pictured above worked for a total of two beds…. and then it puttered out (though it was incredibly useful for those two beds, thank you Emily and Brent who lent us the rototiller!). So we decided to continue in the old-fashioned way: just shoveling straight into the grass, turning it over and over to speed up decomposition. The soil is beautiful sandy loam, which means that it’s not too hard to dig up. That said, it will take literally days to make all of the beds by hand… but hey, Butterbee Farm is now really, really sustainable– no fossil fuels here!

As we dig, we spread pelleted limestone to raise the pH of the soil and incorporate it into the bed. You can get bags of lime from any garden store. Check out the soil test results below; notice the pH is 5.5, which is slightly acidic for flowers and veggies…

Finally, we hooked up the solar powered electric fence to 5000 volts (take THAT, deer!) and baited it with peanut butter on tin foil. The deer will hopefully come up to the tin foil, and get a big shock to their noses! MUAHAHAHAHAAAaaaaaaa……….

We won’t be able to do any more digging once the cold/rain/snow hits next week….. it takes a few sunny, warm days to get dry enough soil for tilling. But, we got started! Woohoo! Happy (kind of?) Spring, everyone……… I hope there are some daffodils poking their stubborn tendrils out in your gardens!

Laura Beth