Just a quick post, will update in a bit. Something about Holly's post re: alfalfa adding calcium bothered me, so I did a brief search and came up with this:
http://www.dummies.com/home-garden/gardening/organic-gardening/fertilizing-your-organic-garden/
Check it out, I'll be back..... >:D >:D >:D
Approximately 0835 returned to edit
As far as what I'm planning this year.....ROSES!! BWAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAAA!!!
My husband told me yesterday, during a conversation with a group of friends, that I could put roses "anywhere." Boy, did I do the happy dance!! Of course, I know anywhere isn't...really. I have to keep any gardens out of possible (unknown to me) travel paths for projects.
So, our garden will be Heritage tomatoes like last year. They did do well in the cinder blocks BUT I think they had a bit too much shade. So I'll be moving them. We'll have regular and grape types. A couple of squash plants. Watermelon and cantaloupe. Corn...lots and LOTS of corn. I LOVE corn. CORNY, CORN CORN!! ;D ;D ;D Cilantro. Herbs. Haven't decided what else.
I'll also be planting my scads and scads of flower seeds that I didn't feel safe planting last year. I have quite a few morning glories (and maybe a couple other climbers, won't know until I dig them out of storage. Ooopss...a pun!! :P ) that I'm going to plant on the south side of the trailers for beauty and shade.
I'm also doing an experiment. Lucky (the Jack Russell Terrier) likes to hunt white grubs. She finds them, digs them up and plays with them. This year, I'm going to see if I can teach her to hunt tobacco worms. These are a type of hornworm that like to munch tomatoes. One grub can just about strip a tomato plant of leaves in about 8 hours. They start out very small, around a 1/2" and maybe the diameter of spaghetti. They grow grossly quickly though! The chickens like to eat them, Lucky likes to hunt. I don't mind hand-picking them. If Lucky can help me find them more quickly and accurately I'll be very happy! I'll let y'all know how it goes.
One last question for Holly. Did you put landscaping cloth down under your raised bed? If no, why? If yes, what did you use?