I’m going to be completely honest and admit that I’ve let my vegetable garden go to hell. I’ve spent the majority of the past three years pregnant or dealing with a newborn and neglected it horribly. This year I am determined to reclaim it and give it the love and attention it desperately needs. Where I live I get six months of winter and two months of the other seasons if I’m lucky. The year I tried to establish my raised beds we had a long spring with two weeks of summer and an early fall. Everything rotted where it grew because it never got hot and dried out. Thankfully this year seems to be following the usual pattern. I was able to start my bed prep in April like I prefer. I did most of it in a single afternoon with help from my husband and a good friend.
The first thing was to rake out all the dead and pull anything left to winter over. I had left all my roots in to winter over and thought I would find quite a few things nicely preserved under the freshly thawed surface. I found six partially eaten carrots. Unbeknownst to me a rabbit had gotten inside the fence and made herself quite a nest between two of my raised beds. She lived high on the hog all winter off my veggies protected from predators by my fence. The hole she was using to get in and out has since been mended.
Raking the debris was fairly straight forward. Since I neglected my beds I had disease issues last year so instead of composting the leaves and dead plants like I would normally recommend doing my husband and I burned them on our dirty burn pile. Then I had him and one of our friends use a weed torch and burn off the surface of all the beds to kill any remaining disease causing microbes and germs before they were turned into the soil to wreck havoc with this year’s crop. My husband loves any excuse to get the weed torch out so it was not hard to get him to help at all.
Turning beds is very hard for me. Last year my husband bought me a two handled broad fork to use. He had seen one when we went to the Mother Earth News Fair in PA the fall before and felt it would be big help. He was right, the broad fork allows me to use my body weight to turn the ground as opposed to relying on strength and stamina both of which I struggle with. With a broad fork I just have to step up on to it and rock back, the tool does the rest of the work. It did not take the 3 of us long to get the six big raised beds and four small ones turned like this. 
After the beds were turned I had the guys burn the beds again. This time they were going after old root material and the worst thing that has resulted from my neglect, an infestation of Japanese Beetle grubs. I hate Japanese Beetles. As grubs they destroy the roots of plants and any root vegetables. Once they become adults they feed on the leaves and fruit of the plants and can kill full grown hardwood trees if there are enough of them. They are also highly annoying buzzing around crashing into everything including windows, the dog, cars and people. They seem especially adept at locating and bouncing off my glasses and falling in my drink. Only mine, never my husbands or one of the kids. It has to be personal. They are huge pests and a big problem. Burning the larvae and eggs in the soil is a big step towards reducing their numbers this year. I have other organic pest control methods I’m going to implement as the season progresses but this was attack one in my war against them.
Here is another confession: I haven’t amended my raised beds in years. I knew that I would have to do that this spring and shopped around for organic solutions. I found a four part system from Arbico organics that I decided to try out. It’s called Bob and John’s soil prep kit. It promises not to burn any existing plants and is all natural. I bought the small kit because I don’t have a great deal of soil to cover. I found it very easy to use and I am optimistic about the results. The first three parts were easy enough to broadcast by hand and the last just required a hose sprayer. No complicated mixing and measuring just toss it, spray it, and water it in. The forecast is calling for three days of rain which should help the amendments work their way in nicely before I put any seeds or plants in.
That is how I spent my Sunday. Hopefully It was a big step towards reclaiming my vegetable patch and undoing the damage caused by neglect. Maybe my poor garden will even forgive me and I’ll get a decent crop this year.
Good luck, Bitsy!
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