Garden Journal: 24 Jan 2009

Tomato bed

Today I dug up and dug out the compost that had become the tomato bed and distributed about half of it among the two raised beds and the potato tower, which is starting to take shape.

The cedar pollen has been at near record levels the last few days, which makes working outside difficult but I wanted to get the raised beds ready to plant spinach and lettuce, which we can plant now if the soil is ready.

From this picture you can see that the composting-in-place approach created 4-6 inches of new soil. The bottom of the stones indicates the original dirt level (I hesitate to call it soil). I simply built the compost pile on top of the soil and a thin layer of cedar mulch. That was early last year.

My plan is to combine the remaining compost with the remaining soil we bought and plant more tomatoes there this year. But first I need to put down something to discourage the grass that had invaded that bed last season.

I'm starting to think that the grass that is growing in our yard is the grass that kept the plains in place--it is growing despite our best efforts to keep it from doing so and will not take no for an answer. Certainly a loose dry stone wall was no impediment. I'm planning to put down several layers of newspaper sections around the edge of the pit before putting the new soil in.