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APRIL

You should have the pH results of your soil by now. This is the time to add lime accordingly. Along with the pH balance, you will also need to concentrate on the texture of the soil. If you are living in the western North Carolina area, it is safe to assume that you will have a very high clay content. Clay is bad in one big way, it retains water. Gardens need a lot of water, but they also need very good drainage. The soil needs to have access to the air, the roots need to be able to “breath”. The best way to accomplish an aeration of the soil is to use a clay breaking material. It is also good at this time to “jolt” the garden with a bit of fertilizer. In my garden I use all organic supplies. Store bought organic material can be considerably more expensive than chemical fertilizers. It is certainly best, both financially, and environmentally to use compost. At this point, however, it is doubtful that you have a compost pile started. You could certainly start one now for next year, but don’t overwhelm yourself, there will be time later in the summer. There are locally available, free compost supplies in most towns. A good resource for Asheville is NCDACS. For the purposes of this tutorial I will assume store bought bags.

1. The first task for this month is to buy all the soil treatments that you will need. The amount will depend on how large your garden is going to be. The bags of clay breaker, and fertilizer will have a scale to guide you. Once you have your materials, lay all the bags out beside your garden plot. I use Lowe's for my garden tools, and wood. For soil, fertilizer, and plants I use Jesse Israel & Sons.

2. It is now time to break into the soil. You should go around the entire area with a shovel, digging at least 6 inches into the ground. Dig in and turn over all of the soil, removing any rocks, stones, or other foreign material.

3. The best, and easiest, way to work the additions into the soil is to spread them out evenly and equally along the garden bed. You do not want to dump all the bags out in one spot, only to spend all day shoveling them around. Good even disbursement is key.

4. You’re going to want to have enough amendments to the soil to raise the overall bed up to the level of the top of the wood border. After all additives are shoveled into the bed, you will have 6 inches above ground, and 6 inches below ground of fertile soil. This is an optimal depth to promote good plant nutrition as well as water drainage.

5. You need to make rows. Shape the rows of your garden so that the peak is 6 inches higher than the valley. The rows should be spaced 30 inches apart. This is an important part of the process. You will plant in the peaks, and the water will drain to the valley. While this is necessary for drainage, it also promotes root growth. Skipping this step will be detrimental to you plants. Without proper drainage the blight will get you.

6. We aren't planting from seed, were going to use starters. For now your work is done, we will begin planting in May. For the rest of the month you will have a very fertile place for weeds to grow. You will need to keep close watch, dig them out, pulling is only temporary.