Laying Out the Garden

The weather has been warming for the past few weeks, and we have had a bit of a dry spell so the soil was perfect for working.  Though I had started turning the garden with a simple spade, I was offered the help of a friend with a tiller, so I gladly accepted the assistance.  Turns out that we were able to finish in one day what would have taken me several weekends to do by hand.  We were also able to make the garden bigger than I had originally planned, which makes me very happy!  I hope I will be able to keep up will all the weeding that establishing this garden will require.

The original garden plan called for eight 3x10 foot beds.  With the help of the tiller, the main garden area has nine 3x10foot beds.  We were also able to add another four beds next to the main area for a total of thirteen regular garden beds.

In this picture you can see the the chicken tractor's run fits perfectly over a bed.  Once the chickens are old enough to move outside, I will be letting them work over the beds until I am ready to plant my main crops in them.

The final addition to the garden plans were these three 75foot long rows that we tilled up at the front of the yard.  I am planning on planting some drought tolerant crops like amaranth, quinoa, and some really tall growing corn to make a nice wind break and visual block for the road.  These plants will be supplementing my chicken feed and hopefully reducing my costs of raising chickens even further.  I may even plant some squash plants among them to act as a cover crop that helps to minimize weeds in these beds.

This a view of the whole garden from the far corner of the yard.  I was happy to find that it is so large that it is difficult to fit it all into one camera angle.  This is by far the best viewpoint, though once the taller crops take off, the best view will probably be the one from my window - looking straight down the center of the garden.