Gardening

Our first year here we tilled up our garden (with the help of a nice neighbor) right next to the chicken coop. with the idea that we could let the chickens in after harvested everything and they could help us clean up. We planted in traditional rows and coming from the arid rocky mountains we were thrilled with the amount of rain we received that summer. We didn't realize that we had quite a bit of clay in our soil and it wouldn't drain so the only plants that we didn't kill by drowning them were the potatoes, since they were grown in hills.

The next year we built some raised beds and that helped a lot with our drainage problems.

 Needless to say, we did pretty well with the raised beds. This year we are going to use companion planting to help cut down on weeds and add to the health of the plants. I am excited to see how it works out.
http://www.companionplanting.net/
We already have a lot of our seedlings started, taking up half of our dining room, just waiting for the sun.