I’m hoping that following the progress of my garden here will help keep me on track and be of interest to others. Where I live is on the edge of the Nebraska sandhills, a prairie ecosystem all its own. We have a very high perched water table, so if we get rains in the spring and then keep things mulched, supplemental watering won’t be needed. A heavy mulch is the key to success there. So far this spring we have gotten just over an inch of rain, which isn’t much.
I mulched this little plot last fall with a thick layer of cardboard then a thick layer of hay. It is going to be my watermelon patch. The grass around it is very aggressive, so that is the biggest threat to success right now.
I had heard somewhere that at least four species growing together will grow better than one alone, then on a going to seed podcast a guest said eight species with roots intermingling will grow better. So I’m testing that out here also.
I thought putting the seeds in this fun little plastic container would help, and give me something to do while waiting on the calendar. But it didn’t work so well getting the seeds out, so these containers will find another purpose.
This is the newly planted plot. Nine hills of an assortment of vegies and flowers, with watermelon. Now I wait and hope the chickens don’t take an interest.
The little tree is a black cherry, planted last year. It is apparently mostly suitable for wildlife, we’ll see.
Wild plum and a crab apple are the other near neighbors.