This is my first year gardening, and man o man making decisions about feeding my plants has been harder than I thought. Those little flashy green packages of Miracle Grow sure do talk a good game on their package, and a few other brands swear they will make awesome veggies. I'm a reader though, and so I dug a little deeper. All those fertilizers, fungicides, bug killers, etc. ALL seemed to have intense warnings for me to NOT consume them. Don't get them on my skin, don't ingest them, don't let it touch my eye. Excuse my french, but my first thought was 'what the hell?!' How can I possibly use these on things I am going to EAT?!
So I set out to find a better solution. Compost and manure seemed to be the place to start! When I tilled up my garden areas I did add gardeners compost soil to help it out, but it just didn't seem to be enough. So before the rains over took Sacramento yesterday, I got up early to feed the soil.
The extra bags didn't get unloaded from the garage until I realized how much I'd need! I mixed composting soil and chicken manure together and set out. I covered all garden area's in about 2 inches of the mix. After I was done I took my little gardeners hand rake and loosened soil around to help it settle. Then I let the rain we had for about 12 hours do the rest! I hope all those good nutrients sink right down and help out!
The backyard DOES smell like the inside of chicken coop, and the pup is fascinated by this! He has eaten a good amount of chicken poop dirt haha. I'm not to worried, he seems fine =) I do hope the smell fades a little. It's not helping my case with Josh on how much I need backyard chickens!
You'll notice from earlier photos how much darker the soil is! It's not just how wet it is, that compost/manure mixture sure was rich! My cucumber trellis is back there, and you'll notice a few plants big enough that I have started to train up. I just use that green gardeners tape that is stretchy and doesn't hurt the plant. It's pretty sturdy stuff!
What are you doing to help your garden along?
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