Here is our garden in its very beginning stages. First we contacted a local dairy and arranged to have year-old manure spread on our garden spot. Next we got a friend to till. Then we spread out the irrigation system. All these steps are essential to a healthy garden.
Fertilizer is the food the plants will eat. Because we like to do our garden as much organic and the least chemical as possible, we chose manure as our fertilizer. When using manure, we make sure it's aged for at least a year. New manure will burn plants.
Tilling makes the soil soft and workable. It also mixes the manure with the soil. We till our garden spot at the beginning of each spring. Loose soil is important to allow water and air to reach the roots of the plants.
Because we live in a steppe climate where we barely get enough rain to not be a desert, and summer temperatures reach as high as 110 degrees Fahrenheit, an irrigation system is absolutely necessary. We have in years past, ran water down rows. Our soil is mostly sand and sand soaks up an enormous amount of water. By the time we got the water pressure high enough to shoot the water to the end of the row, it was so high that it literally dug up everything at the first of the row. We've tried using a sprinkler, but water from a sprinkler quickly evaporates. So with water conservation in mind, a sprinkler is not the best choice. Soaker hoses seem to be the best answer. They deliver water right to the roots where it does the most good. We use black funny pipe and insert emitters right where we are going to plant each plant. Then there is no wasted water. And an extra bonus, less weeds grow because they don't get watered.
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