Springtime..Maybe..

I have taken advantage of the recent dry and warmer weather to start preparing our vegetable plot, I was going to plough it again but there wasn't a lot of vegetation on it and the soil here is very fine so I have just been over it with the rotavator attachment i have for the tractor.

As you can see by the photo the plot from last year is just about visible and as it is planty big enough for our needs I'm rotavating exactly the same area, the only difference is that I will be rotating what I planted last year.

What took me a little over an hour to rotavate I wouldn't have been able to hand dig in a year. It is still a bit early to put much in yet but I did put a row of shallots in.

Of course just when I was thinking Spring was well on the way Winter came back to bite us this morning!

Composting

It really does begin to feel like springtime here today, although I'm not banking on it lasting to long, we have had sunshine all day and temperatures in the mid to high 50s F so I've been out in the garden most of the day.

Last year, our first year at putting in the vegetable garden, wasn't a great success for the amount of effort I put into it. The potatoes and carrots were fine and the turnips and some of the greens were so so but the beans were a disaster as were the peas and onions.
By contrast our immediate neighbough had a huge abundance of every vegetable you can think of! So, I'm taking notice of him and following his lead. He has been putting compost down for the last couple and today I noticed he made several trips down the road to pick up manure from a farmer neighbough. I can't get hold of any manure at the moment but I did compost all the kitchen vegetable waste plus grass cutting etc so I have been laying that down today.

It has rotted down well and nearly black in colour and although I haven't a huge amount of it I am sure that it will improve the soil, I was also lucky during last Autumn to get some horse manure which has also gone down.
Next year I should have a lot more as I already have another compost bin full which has started to rot and I will easily fill another one during this Spring/Summer. My next job will be to rotavate it in all soon. Just like  +Mandy Allen I can get a lot more excited over compost and manure than a lot of other things I can think of!