Soil Prep for this Year’s Vegetable Garden and Planter Box To-Do’s
Today I took the girls with me and we picked up fresh compost from our local yard waste center. Every year they have a huge mound of the stuff and its free for the taking – black gold, as I often refer to it as – and so must others because the stuff goes rather quickly. I used it to replenish the soil that’s currently in our two box planters. I keep a mixture of compost, peat moss, and vermiculite as my soil. Got the recipe last year from here: squarefootgardening.com
They recommend a 1/3 mixture with all three components, but I’m probably heaviest on the compost, then the peat moss, and finally just a dusting of the vermiculite. That worked well for me last year. After adding everything in this evening I spent a few minutes tilling the soil and getting it nicely aerated.
I use the square foot method discussed on that site, but last year the twine that I used to create my squares disintegrated towards the end of the summer and just became a mess. I like the idea so this year I’ll try fishing line instead and see how that holds up through the season.
I also need to get a decent rabbit deterrent system in place. We have a family that lives under our shed, and the planter boxes are pretty much in the middle of their living room. It never really dawned on me last year that I should protect the plants, until one morning I discovered that the rabbits had taken a liking to the romaine and broccoli that we planted. At the time, I had just thrown together a very quick and dirty wire mesh fence around the one box and it did the trick, but this year I’d like to make something a little more sturdy and reusable.
