Happy Earth Day! Cow poo and carrots, oh my!

This morning before work, I moved 100 pounds of cow poo from the back of the truck to the beds.  In case you were wondering what 100 pounds of organic cow poo looks like, here you go:

I stopped off at Home Depot on the way home to buy a hand cultivator (looks like a trowel but with 3 prongs on it instead) and a couple seed packets at half price in honor of Earth Day (cilantro and spring onions), total $10.33.  While I was there I noticed that in stark contrast to last weekend vegetable and herb starts were *everywhere*, and I began experiencing buyer's regret.  Here I'd gone and blown over $50 on seed without really knowing if I'd be able to make direct planting work, as SFG instructs.  I don't have any good place indoors to start seeds (think cats and windowsills), so outside is all I've got. I'd paid standard shipping on the seeds, so they were at least 5-8 days away... and today was such a lovely balmy Spring day that seeing all those robust tomato and pepper plants and herbs and so forth was actually a bit depressing.

That mood lasted until I got home, when I saw the big brown envelope on top of my mailbox.... my seed, and after only 3 days!!  There was even a note inside apologizing for their slow (?) response, plus a complimentary seed pack.  Yay for Baker Seeds!  Opening that box was like Christmas in April, and I got excited all over again.  (I have to admire the marketing tactic, but they did deliver and then some!)

After spreading the manure, I dumped that 5 gallon bucket of red clay from yesterday, spreading it equally between the two beds.  Garden Clawed everything up, plucking out innumerable clumps of sod as I went.  (FYI:  Apparently roto-tilled sod does not go gentle into that good night.  My dandelion puller, cultivator and I had conversations with some of that sod.)

I filled up the carrot box in the upper bed and evened out everything as best I could.  Then I refilled the 5 gallon bucket with soil, and discovered I had a problem.  Five gallons is no where near enough to backfill that whole potato box.

It will take (by my eyeballing) at least 10 gallons to do the job, so I'll need 2 more buckets to get enough fill out of my way.  I can't lay grids or plant anything in either main bed until I remove that fill and get the remaining soil leveled, so, priority #1 for tomorrow is buckets!

That last may sound like Greek to you, but it will eventually make sense, I promise!  Anyway, below is the post tilling shot.

Seeing as how I was able to get the carrot box filled, though, I went ahead and planted the first square.  That box is 1 foot by 3 foot, so, three squares available.  (I've been warned to stagger the planting so they don't all mature at once, which makes perfect sense to me.)

I set up the grid on the carrot box using drywall screws and "Sturdy Twists" plant securing twine.  This marks out the individual square feet.  I already love that twine, it's cheap and has its own cutter on the reel.  I did make an idiot of myself with the drill, though, until I figured out which way to wrap the twine so that tightening each screw would not simultaneously unwrap the twine.  Duh!

Carrots are planted 16 per square foot in Square Foot Gardening (SFG), as represented by the twigs and the dimples in the soil there.  But according to the packet, carrots should be surface sown, so I smoothed all that out before I actually planted the seeds, 2-3 per each dimple.  In the same picture you can see the spikes that will eventually be used to set the row lines for the main bed.

I want to plant some spring onions among the carrots, too, just didn't get to it tonight.  That is companion planting, not SFG, but still great stuff.

Hubby brought home the edging (~$25) for the bed sections which don't have landscape timbers.  I will try to put those in tomorrow.  Now that I'm sitting back and thinking about it, though, it might be a good idea to totally surround each bed with edging.  The timbers are just lying on the soil surface, and that grass of ours is pretty determined.

While I was at it, I ripped out two shrubs that didn't last through the winter, and started working on my herb containers.  I haven't figured out how to manage the woody herbs (marjoram, thyme) so that they come up cleanly in the spring instead of being all twiggy.  Maybe I am being too nice to them in the fall?