The seeds have been ordered, even our trees have been ordered. The closer it is to planting time, the more our excitement grows. We will be planting trees starting this week, and will plant the garden sometime after that.

We had a garden last year, but it was the first year that particular patch of land was ever used for such a purpose. And we knew the soil wasn’t where it needed to be, ecologically speaking. We got a good amount of veggies, but not as much as we wanted. This year we are stepping up our game. Over the winter we surrounded our potted trees with hay bales for insulation. Those hay bales got lots of rain being left in the elements all winter. They are half decomposed and are filled with earthworms and mushrooms. I’ve heard that hay is good for composting and I’ve been interested in starting a compost pile, so I was going to use that hay to start. Then Jamie and I were talking and had a great thought, what if we go on and mix the decomposed hay, earthworms, and mushrooms straight into the soil? So that’s what we did.

After that I did some YouTube research on using hay in the garden like that and I came across some inspiring stories of people using the Ruth Stout method, which is a no work gardening method using hay as mulch. I am now fascinated with hay and with Ruth Stout. We are going to employ this method this year and see if it works for us. When using this method, though, you start in the fall. You lay out the hay, straight over the grass in the area you want to use for gardening and by spring you will find good moist soil beneath the hay. Since I just discovered this, it’s too late for us to do that this year. So we will have to do a little extra work to catch up.

For starters, Jamie used the ground break to start to aerate our hard clay/rock soil. Another reason we needed to do this is to clear out the debris. About ten years ago a tornado came through our farm and wiped out everything: houses, play structures, sadly even some animals. Every time we walk around we find objects that have their own tornado story. We’ve found several restaurant or catering serving dishes, a diaper changing station like you see in public restrooms, animal bones, several sections of twisted up siding, and tin roofing materials. One of the bigger items was part of a commercial type spiral slide from a playground. We find things in the woods when we go for walks and anytime we dig in the ground. Jamie drove the tractor back and forth and Mia and I walked through the field picking up debris and large rocks and roots. Here is some of the debris we found.

A formerly round metal drum. We also found three lids (not pictured) one of which may go with this drum.

A four foot long post wth a large nail sticking out.

Several of these rectangle stones. I’m guessing they were a sidewalk or a border of some kind.

Here is Nutmeg digging for a worm or other small creature that caught her eye. I’m still working on teaching her to dig holes for us to plant trees in. It’s not going so well.

Now that the tines for the tiller have come, Jamie tilled the spoiled hay into the soil. Then we covered the soil with another thick layer of hay. And now we should be all caught up to use the Ruth Stout method on our garden this year. More information and pictures on that when we actually plant.