That's been my response to everything about my garden lately. Damn Bunnies are the reason I didn't get any of my Kohlrabi's last year. Damn Bunnies are the reason that my body is aching today.
I spent the last two days engaging in manual labor... all because of the Damn Bunnies! Not really, but yes.
My backyard is L shaped around the garage. The back section I laughingly refer to as "The Back 40." So when we bought my house this is what the "Back 40" looked like.
In the center you can see the garden that was already here. It was just a turned up area full of weeds. The only thing I did to that was weed it and had it rota-tilled. About five feet to the left of this garden we turned up a 10'x10' section of grass. I was planning on turning that into a sandbox for my son, but then the leaks happened and we didn't have money for that project, so I just used it as garden space. There is also an old dead stump in the middle the back edge of the original garden space, which we took down to ground level during this project. This was a large project that was spaced over two days and required large amounts of help from my husband.
Here is what The Back 40 looks like now.
This is looking on from the opposite angle of the previous photo. Both of the plots have now been incorporated into one large garden. The first thing we did was to gather the railroad ties from posts on Freecycle. This was done last fall. We laid them out in areas that we could dig up easily Plus they were piled on an area that we needed to dig up sod. We waited lay some of them until we had rented the rota-tiller. The fencing we bought because it was supposed to be super easy to install. We did learn a couple lessons;
1. Don't step on the blades that help give them stability. One of them went through the sole of my tennis shoe.
2. The little tabs that were supposed to hold the fence to the stakes were a joke. Most of them were painted shut. I sent my husband to the store for green zip ties.
3. A rubber mallet is the best option to pound these babies into the ground. Anything else chinks off the protective green coating.
The new measurements are 31.5'x13'! For a total of 409.5 square feet of growing space!!
For the garden prep we took a trip to our city compost. We got rid of a bunch of garden and yard waste and came home with rich, black compost. My city has a compost site that is free to all residents. If you're thinking about gardening I would recommend finding out if your community has something similar. The main reason I haven't entertained the idea of starting my own compost is because for the effort of driving across town I can get all the free compost I want. It's also been tested by my local UW-Extension and found to be of very high quality. Check out the website. They have a lot of information about gardening, nutrition, youth development and so much more.
Once the entire area was rota-tilled and most of the chucks of sod were removed, the area was spread with ashes from the fire pit (high carbon content), compost from the city compost site, and some compost made from 100% buffalo manure. This was then rota-tilled again. I do have to get back out there to do some more weeding on the newly created garden patches, but I've got some time to get out there and do that.
This is the gate to get in and out. It may need some adjustments as we go if the Damn Bunnies can figure out how to get in.
You see some white stuff spread on the ground here. This is diatomaceous earth. I had found some little white worm-like things on the roots of some plants that had problems last year. Diatomaceous earth is a physical pesticide. The bugs it kills cannot develop a resistance or tolerance. You do want to buy a product that's labeled as "food grade." I found it in the organic gardening section. Before using this you need to check weather sources carefully. Once this stuff gets wet, it no longer works. I only checked one weather source and it said no rain. It rained last night. So be sure to check a couple sources.
The garden is edged on two sides by this narrow swath of space. Too small to take a lawn mower. I placed bricks that I found in various places as I've torn things apart in the garage and yard to create a barrier. Now I'm working on killing the grass and weeds in this area. I could use a commercial grass and weed killer, but at what costs? The big one being exposure to the chemicals during application and then through soil leaching into the foods I'll be growing in the garden. I will be using a spray of full strength vinegar to kill the grass and weeds growing in this area. Once I have the area cleared I will spread wild flower seeds. Beautiful and low maintenance!
When I was researching vinegar as an herbicide, I came across this post. The writer did a comparative experiment of vinegar as an herbicide. The results make me wonder if they cleared away dead plants or just left them between applications. Or even if there were multiple applications. I plan on clearing away plant debris in between applications of vinegar. I think that will have an impact on regrowth.
If you have comments or questions about anything I used to complete this project, please leave them below!
