Get Ready To Plant - DFW Gardening

It is about that time of the year when you should be thinking about your summer garden. I know...it is still January.

Preparing:
By now...your garden should be tilled, tilled and re-tilled a few times. You need to go down about 8-10" and let all of the live organic material start to rot - making you some great soil! If you do not have that well of soil you SHOULD add a few inches of some sort of compost. We use mushroom compost - the stuff rocks! We used about 4-5" for our entire garden and tilled it in with the existing soil. The more you till it the fewer weeds you will have. You can till as many times as you want - but about a month before you plant - STOP tilling. You need to let your earth have a rest & let the dirt settle so the soil doesn't wash away when you water your newly planted seeds/seedlings. Make sure to go over your tilled garden with a rake - you want to pick up any rocks, weeds or other debris.

This is from 2010 - We started to till the earth in our backyard.

Raking after the first few tills - before we added the compost.

Our compost has been delivered & we've started to spread it out over the entire garden.

Tilling the compost into the tilled earth.

***You should also have some of your seeds starting in an indoor grow area - check the seed packages for their planting dates.***

(I AM NOT AN EXPERT. IF THIS DOESN'T WORK FOR YOUR GARDEN - IT ISN'T MY FAULT. THIS IS WHAT WORKS FOR MY GARDEN.)