Baby its cold outside

Ok here it is March 3rd, 2014 and we are getting 8 inches of snow. The strange thing is this is how winter is supposed to be in the Virginia Suburbs, not the warmth that I had grown accustomed to over the last 14 years. Its amazing how climate change makes you start to think that warm is normal. In years previous I had already had my beds made and the grow-house out. Its supposed to go down to 3 degrees tonight.

So with that having been said, looks like I'm going to wait until April to start everything. Its just too cold and I am afraid that if I proceed as normal (read: what climate change has led me to believe as normal) noting will grow, or everything will be stunted like they were last year. I just ordered my seeds, and I got some seed potatoes yesterday from my neighbors, but we're just gonna have to wait.

Maybe I have been planting too early since my garden essentially goes to seed by late August anyway and the first frost isn't until November. So let's play Mother Nature's game her way and I will wait until April 5th or so to start the grow-house. Hopefully the soil will be warm enough for planting in May. Except the lettuce and spinach, those guys go in as soon as the ground thaws.

And yes, looking into chicken coops. Its already too late because the chicks won't give me any eggs until October (which means none), but if I get them in October, then they would be ready by next spring. I think I'm going to need 4. I already picked out the name for one of them: Billina.

Version 7??

Here it is, the layout for the latest version of the garden.

I'm not exactly sure the no-till aspect really helped last year. The garden was pitiful. Also, no matter how much fertilizer I put on it, I hardly got anything. Looks like I have to test the soil again and see what's missing. Also, I really do need to till it. The crabgrass is just insane and is taking over all my beds. It needs to get shredded. I also need to do a better job of weeding. I'm trying to find lower intensity means of doing this, so I think I will be adding some of that black bedding cover to keep the weeds down, still deciding. Or at least some way of making it much easier to weed.

The driveway bed downslope side is also collapsing, so I'm going to flip it over, and then think about how to replace it with something more sturdy next year. Some kind of low retaining wall. 

So without further ado, here is the plan: