They Like It Hot

Below in an excerpt from a garden consultation that Jeff did last week. Maybe it could help you gain some insight into your own backyard garden! 

Your garden needs humus, Find this black soil underneath where cows are fed and coat the garden area a few inches deep. I suspect a 50 pound bag each of rock phosphate and jersey greensand would also be beneficial for the phosphorous, potassium and trace elements they contain. Just fling it out over the garden.

You need to keep a few rolls of your hay. Get it from the first cutting, which should be done before it goes to seed. In your situation, you have to keep the weeds down while you are away in Nashville. The frost hardy crops can be mulched right away: potatoes, onions, lettuce, swiss chard, beets and such. Let the ground thoroughly warm up before you mulch tomatoes, peppers, squash and other later crops. They like it hot.

Establish a perennial bed for rhubarb, asparagus, berries, etc., and plant the sage, oregano, rosemary and thyme with them.

Blueberries are slow to get going, but make sense for you to pant now. Put out a few dozen of what your neighbor recommends. Keep them mulched and add plenty of black, rotted (this is very important- must be rotted to the point that you can not tell what it used to be) organic materials. We keep the blooms picked off for the first few years to encourage the plant to grow big before it comes into production.

Thornless blackberries are quicker to start bearing, usually the year after planting. They require a trellis to grow on. They also like organic matter, compost and mulch.