After watching my mom grown our own organic vegetables in her garden for years, I decided that I really wanted this year to be the year I started my own organic garden. So with a very rare sunny 80 degree April day yesterday, I took my opportunity to get my garden ready for planting. After staking my claim on the land where I wanted to have it, it was time to get down to business giving the soil some major TLC. Here is a picture of what it looked like before I went to work on it…

Garden: Before

Then two hours and a lot of sweat later..

Garden: After

If you are like me and have NEVER done anything like this before, let me explain the proces…

Tools:

My Tools

• Gasoline Powered Tiller
• Garden Rake
• Ground Cultivater
• Gloves

Time: 2 Hours

Cost: $0

I borrowed all of the tools from my father in law so that didn’t cost anything. 1)I used the tiller to dig into and pull up the existing grasses and weeds. 2)I then took the ground cultivator to break up the ground even more and to pull up the grass roots. 3)Lastly, I separated the dirt from all of the leaves/grasses/roots and composted everything but the dirt, leaving a nice, clean plot ready for planting.  

It’s still too cold here to plant anything just yet, but I am planning on using some natural fertilizer (post later to come) to really enrich the soil before I put my seedlings in. (Side note: I just planted my seedlings and am getting them started inside so that they will be ready to plant when the warmer weather is here to stay)