OUTDOOR TUTORIAL #3
Ground Prep and Fencing
Preparing your garden bed
This tutorial can be done any time of year. Preparing the ground as early as possible is highly recommended, however in the heat of the new season you may stumble across a new location you may want to utilize... it may be as late as December (You can still get very decent harvests planting that late!!) - Using this technique to prepare your garden bed, plants that you may have ready for planting in their propagation tubs (your 40 clear tubs) will be SAFE to go in your garden bed that instant - same day you created it without the risk of burning your new seedlings.
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Ok, you are in your spot, the ground and foliage have been cleared back to just bare dirt. and you have a nice open space to create a nice sized garden bed. You should have in there with you:
1 - Your tub of seeds ready to sprout
2 - A GOOD spade
3 - Your burnt Chicken netting roll
4 - Your fertilisers : 2x Bags of sheep pellets, 1x bag of lime, 1x bag of nitrophoska, 1x bag of blood and bone.
5 - A ball of black twine (Ihave not mentioned this in my other tutorials - but this is MUCH needed)
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Make sure to pack some food and DEFINITELY a drink!
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Take your shovel and head to one side of the garden bed... starting off can really suck.. but you will soon get a rhythm going. In this exercise we are only wanting the topsoil.. no deeper.
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Start by digging your shovel in about as deep as the the blade of the shovel will go, uplift a big clod, turn it upside down and put it back in its same hole, then use the shovel to moderately break up the clod so it is not too cloddy - at this stage you do not need to break it up too fine, it can be lumpy and not too much effort to break it up needs to be exhausted.... YET
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In that very fashion - inverting clods and moderately breaking them down - cut a line directly through the center of what will be your garden bed - cutting it straight in half.
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Start a new line parallel to the first one, the same depth and up lift another clod, this time instead of replacing it in its same hole you removed it from, place it forward onto the very center on top of the line cutting through the middle, again use your shovel to moderately break up the clods. Cut all the way across every time chucking the soil forward or to the center.
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Change sides of the center line starting a new line also parallel - Follow step 3 again
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Continue working your way from the center outward uplifting every clod of topsoil and throwing back it to the center - breaking the clods down each time.
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Your aim is to end it with this big mountain of moderately broken down top soil from every bit being chucked toward the center of the heap... and the TRENCH.
All that digging and chucking to the center has hopefully made an awesome big trench around your heap of topsoil, as pictured above - this is GREAT...
Next is the real fun part! In any particular order add your fertilizers so they evenly cover the mound of topsoil you have created.
Pour ALL of the two bags of sheep pellets on.
Get your bag of lime and grab handfuls out of the bag, and lightly dust approx 2 handfuls per meter square over top.
Exactly the same approach as lime with your blood n bone except you can afford to apply 3 handfuls per square meter.
And nitrophoska... if you have a 5kg bag - evenly use it ALL otherwise 4 to 5 handfuls of that per square meter should be suffice.
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BEFORE you turn all of that goodness into the topsoil - its time to make a start on your fence. unroll your chicken netting around the perimeter of your garden bed, sit the bottom of your fencing INSIDE the trench against the edge of it as you go around. Leave approx 0.5meter overlap(no less)to be joined LATER.
Now get inside your fence/garden, and use your shovel to simultaneously move and mix all that topsoil and fert flattening out and further breaking down what has become quite a large mound, aiming also to bury the fencing in the trench, so the bottom of the fence is held well in place in the trench by your soil.. and rabbits are less like to be able to dug under, and possums/pigs/other pests are less likely to be able to lift your fencing and get under.
Nearly there. your garden bed will now start to look considerably bigger and better, spend time once your fencing is in place using your shovel to further break down all that topsoil, fluffing it up and mixing all that goodness in. The more love you put in right now the more you will get out, its hard yakka, but make that soil MEAN.
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Sit your tub inside the fencing, and your nearly good to go. But you haven't finished your fence yet. Get your string/twine and start by heading to any section of your fence tie one end to the TOP of you fence, the other end to a bush or tree - or something you can tie to aiming to pull the fencing on an OUTWARD diagonal angle away from the garden bed so anything trying to climb up not only has to deal with this horrible overhang... but the fencing is all horrible and rusty for there claws to hold on to - they wont like that!!
Make your way all the way around tieing off where you need to/can to acheive that same outward angle around the whole perimeter of your garden bed.
And only now can you join the fence at the overlaps to its completely enclosed... trying to do that anytime sooner and you wont get that outward angle.
Thats all for now folks
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Next... planting your seedlings and taking care of them through out the season
