Farm Journal: Dipping a Toe into Bed Formation
Story time! Last year, Michael and I assembled a cheap 10x20ft greenhouse/hoophouse kit for our tomatoes. With my mom and sister’s help, we laid cardboard and spread compost, then planted about fifty tomatoes, and set up a drip irrigation system using a prepackaged kit. Aside from poor tomato support planning that saw most of the plants sprawling across the ground by August, it all worked fine.
For a season.
Naturally, crabgrass cares nought for cardboard mulch and began bursting through almost immediately. Between the sprawling plants and general life chaos, not a lot of weeding happened. By the time the first autumn freezes and windstorms arrived, and the greenhouse cover tore itself free from its meager Velcro attachment points, and the plants all went moldy and brown… we didn’t have much to do with the greenhouse.
Now, it’s early spring and the future market garden area is too wet to work in. But, I figured, the greenhouse cover is still mostly intact, at least enough to keep most of the rain off that 10x20ft patch. If I let the soil dry out and warm up, maybe I can pull enough of the crabgrass roots out to make a difference, and get at least 40 bed-feet prepared early.
So, I did!
After the soil had been covered for a couple of weeks, it was warm and dry enough to work. In the last couple of days, I’ve been going over that soil with a fine toothed comb. Not literally, but pretty close. I used the broadfork, a digging fork, and an assortment of hoes to excavate every trace of weed root and rhizome I could find, then formed two raised beds the length of the greenhouse. Finally, I laid weed barrier fabric in the central path and around the outside of the beds.
With the weed situation sorted, I then turned to the soil. Last year’s heavy application of compost definitely did some good, but I raked another couple of wheelbarrows’ worth of compost over the top of the beds for good measure. And raked, and raked, and raked until I had a fine, smooth tilth.
Now, it’s time to plant. (Planting!!! Yay!!!) A shoo-in are the flower starts that are languishing in trays right now from my over-eager, late winter seed starting frenzy. I also want to direct sow some quick, early vegetable crops like salad greens, scallions, and radishes. I’ll start them off under cover, but since ventilation is a difficulty in that greenhouse, I’ll probably take the cover off once the weather warms up.
I’ll be keeping an eye on weed pressure, above all. Is it worth it to spend all the time and energy I put into getting every last bit of crabgrass rhizome out of the soil? (Is it even possible to get every last bit out?) Does the weed barrier fabric really help? Does spreading a seed-free mulch prevent germination of the weed seeds that are banked in our soil? It will be an interesting, low-stakes experiment. Stay tuned.