Garden expansion.

This year we have tripled the size of our veggie garden. To the left of that photo is about a 20x60 plot, which is roughly what we planted last year. The area you see is about 40x60 feet.

We used a cultivator attachment on the Ford tractor to rip the sod off and break up compaction in the soil without actually tilling. My neighbor called the attachment "spring harrows." It's sort of like a lightweight chisel plow. Five curved metal teeth with replaceable blades on the ends. Anyway, it works wonders in our boulder-y soil, as the rocks don't break it - it just springs around them gently. Then we dug out (most of) the boulders with the front-end loader on the tractor. That was fun. (Always is!) We had to bulldoze one down the hill a bit as it was too big to even fit in the bucket!

So with most rocks out (trust me, I planted around plenty of granite!) we attached the PTO tiller to our new-to-us Simplicity lawn tractor and tilled everything. The soil looked pretty good to start with, and with money at a premium we haven't added much in the way of amendments. This fall we'll be sure to secure truckloads of cow manure and till it all in, but for this year I just did some extra amending to the rows themselves, and will add a bunch of composted cow manure and some peat moss to the very far side of the plot in the photo. That area was the most ledgey and clay-ey.

Yesterday I planted potatoes and more of the delicious Jacob's cattle beans we grew last year. I have a pot of those very beans, grown nearby on Butterworks Farm, simmering in the oven. We make them with Mexican spices, sweat them with onions, garlic, spices and salt on the stove, then add water, bring to boil, and bake for 5-6 hours in the oven. Tender, delicious beans that make a great base for Mexican dishes is what we end up with!

And this afternoon I'll grind the 2 cups or so of flint corn we managed to grow last year, and make cornbread to go with the beans for supper. Whee!