Calvin Allen with Ground Wind Turbine

Garden Preparation for Spring Planting

Burn Off watch.

This is one of my typical control burn off fires. As you can see it is rather small for good fire control.

As soon as possible in the spring I start working on my garden preparations. Usually, I start by raking up and pulling the residue from last year’s plant and weed remains. After I clear out all I can—I burn the rest to avoid weeds and vines clogging up the tiller tines. I almost always do two burns to get the wetter residue, which won’t dry until it gets air exposure. After burning, the real work begins! Once the burn process is over I start the cultivating process.

The areas I’m planting root crops in I usually turn over with a good cultivating fork. This is not an easy job, but it will greatly help the root crop production. A good plow will also work well, but in a confined area like mine, I can’t use a plow. Once the dirt is turned over, I run my small cultivator through it to mix up the soil blend, then rake it down and begin planting.

Cultivator Fork

These forks are good to turn over ground to about 8 inches, if the dirt is workable. I have added a lot of organic mulch for several years and the ground works well.

In the larger plots, I use a rear-tine tiller that I bought over 10 years ago and it is still working fine. Any kind of tiller you want to use will work. The rear-tine is best to work in the dirt and rocks, but it is much heavier to maneuver especial at the ends of the rows.

Posted in Gardening.

Calvin

Calvin graduated from Mineral Area College, majoring in Electronics, Physics and Math. He has worked at Westinghouse Electric as a design engineer for 3-phase transformers and Quality control of built product and at Callaway Nuclear Plant in start-up support and Materials Engineering, Electrical division. He has had owned his own business in electrical and communications for over 20 years and has built several homes as a general contractor. However his biggest interest is in providing Alternative Resources of Energy for rural homes and industries at a reasonable non cost-prohibited expense to customers. Calvin also had a small greenhouse business to help fund his college education and continued to do greenhouse and gardening for a added income through out the years.. Loves to garden and work with plant care. Calvin also did several years of electronic service and repair of Electronic equipment on hybrid and tube type of equipment. Calvin still studies about organic chemistry and other alternative energy services and supply solutions. Currently working on some inexpensive DIY collectors from 4 inch schedule 35 pvc with spray adhesive and alluvium foil to heat water or antifreeze for heating system.. Will show work as completed.

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