Mid spring we were planning the location for the well near the workshop. We selected a location behind the workshop next to a brushy area. I decided to go ahead and have that area cleared by our friend Nate Hoffman and his brother, its nice and flat and I thought perhaps it might be more useful cleared.

In May right before a rain storm arrived I lit the brush pile up and spent most of the day and evening churning it up to keep it burning. Even after most of it burned, there were at least two full loads that I hauled out with the dump trailer of large stumps and just remnants of the brush that didn’t burn. More of a job then I bargained for.

Fast forward a month, and after Emily & Randy arrived and got their bearings, they thought that one acre lot would make and excellent spot for their planned market garden. They went ahead and had the soil tested by the Va Tech cooperative and I scheduled it to have the appropriate amount of lime spread.

Well, if it was going to be a garden then I needed to get all of the remaining roots out, plow and till the soil and add in some fertilizer. I used a ripper to pull out the remaining roots and sticks, again, way more than I thought was in there. This also loosened up the top layer of soil. Next, I used by single board mould plow to turn over all of the weeds/grass that had begun to grow. This was tedious as the sheer bolt snapped a number of times on remaining roots and some significant rocks. Once that was done I waited for the lime and fertilizer as Randy suggested that I till both in. Randy did some research and recommended an organic composted chicken manure which I picked up down in Waynesboro at New Organics, a 2000 pound bag. I borrowed my neighbors PTO spreader for the tractor and simply shoveled it into the spreader as I didn’t have another piece of equipment big enough to pickup the bag and pour it in.

Next came the tractor driven tiller, which did a great job smoothing out the dirt and mixing in the fertilizer and lime. The tiller ‘found’ many rocks, we now have some piles at the edges of the field. Lastly, I purchased 200 pounds of cover crops, that just happen to be very tasty for the deer. This will hold the soil over the winter and provide a form of fertilizer when we turn it over next year for the final making of the beds for the crops. In the meantime, the winter rye and oats is coming up like crazy!!