April was a maintenance month in the garden.  The kitchen harvested all our beautiful sweet carrots at the end of the month; I didn’t realize how attached I was to the carrots until we showed up during our last visit of the month and they were all gone.   Broccoli and radishes have all been harvested for the season, but the chard is hanging in there.  Otherwise, weeds are the major story for the month, which repeats what we’ve seen in landscapes all over town this spring.  I had to bring in the BG army for an hour one morning to help get a grip on it:

Oh, and we also had some visitors on the fennel for a of couple weeks:

We got into a rhythm prepping several beds for May planting.  The first step was to not feel overwhelmed by an overgrown bed, like this one, full of self-seeded cilantro and peppermint:

Pulling up the unwanted plants is actually pretty easy in these beds, thanks to the previous double-digging effort by Scott and Randy during garden construction.  Below photo represents the end of Phase 1 of Bed Prep: “Weeding”:

Once the weeding phase is complete, then we turn the soil by using a hard rake or hoe, to create a trench or two along the full length of the bed:

Then we add about 2-4″ of high-quality, fully composted, Manure Compost into the trenches and on top of the mounds:

Then we work that compost into the soil as evenly as possible, filling in the trenches and raking the bed smooth, then replace the drip irrigation hoses:

Then, we plant our starter plants or spread seed, or in this case, spread alfalfa hay on top of the prepared soil to help regulate soil temps and moisture levels until we’re ready to plant:

Stay tuned for the May update: news will bring lots of planting, and a celebrity guest to the garden!

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