I Couldn't Wait to Get Started

Since the movers hadn't arrived with my household goods, I had the opportunity to do things like get the interior walls of the house painted, have the carpet cleaned and.... start a garden! I located the sunniest spot in the yard.  It gets full sun all day.  And that is where I decided to start.  I went to the local home improvement store to buy a few garden seedlings, and a couple of bags of compost and a bag of peat moss.  The selection of vegetable varieties was pretty good.  I selected a Big Boy hybrid tomato, Super Sweet 100 cherry tomato, Cherokee Purple heirloom tomato, Indigo Rose tomato, a tomatillo, Brights Lights swiss chard, Ancho peppers, Crookneck squash, Zucchini squash and Butternut squash.

It seemed pretty straightforward.  Based on previous experience, I would start by removing the grass in a 4' X 4' area and then loosen the soil by digging and turning it over.

It turns out that this was easier said than done.  It was really difficult to get the grass out!  I hit a rock and what appeared to be clay soil.  I rethought my plan and decided maybe a 2' X 2' area would be a good start.  It took me an hour and a half to do that little bit.  I called it a day!

Fresh from a good night's rest, I went out the next day and thought I would dig up the soil.  However, the previous day's experience was repeated.  It seemed that every time I tried to sink the shovel down into the soil, I hit more rocks.  There were lots of rocks.  Some of what I first thought were rocks, were actually gobs of dry hardened clay.  I could tell the difference only because when the shovel hit a rock it made a definite "clink" or grating sound.  Clods of clay, on the other hand, seemed as hard as a rock, but with effort could be crushed against the shovel blade.  I wet a handful of the soil and squeezed it.  When I opened my hand it retained the exact shape of how my hand had molded it!  It did not fall apart... not even a little bit.  The soil  definitely had lots of clay in it!

I managed to get the soil turned over and rocks removed in the 2' X 2' area in two hours.  Whew!  I called it another day!  Here are the rocks that I removed from that 2' X 2' area.

The next day I spread half a bag of compost and a few shovelfuls of peat moss evenly over the area and then dug it into the soil.  Peat moss is great for lightening heavy clay soils and compost adds organic matter and helps lighten and add fertility.  

Then I planted the 8" tall Big Boy hybrid tomato plant.  Then I watered it.  

The next day, I started all over again.  I removed the grass from another 2' X 2" area.  Then the following day I dug out the rocks, then turned the soil, then added compost and peat moss, then planted another seedling.  I continued to do this almost every day, and by the 15th of July I had four tomato plants, one tomatillo and two pepper plants in the ground.  The first tomato plant, the Big Boy, had started to really show growth.