At least that’s what I thought before I started digging my new flower beds! Turns out there were coffee table sized flat rocks lurking just beneath the surface. I decided that renting a tractor for the weekend was a better use of my limited time. It turned what would have been a multiple week project into just a day and a half job. This was completed the last day of August in 2022.

After digging out what seemed like 1 million rocks I was able to start amending the beds with compost. I brought in two pickup truck loads of locally made compost. The compost was spread about 2-3” thick on top of the existing soil. Into this compost I seeded my first cover crop: winter rye. The cover crop was planted September 17th 2022.

After the cover crop over wintered it was terminated in 3 parts starting in mid April. Each section was covered in black weed fabric for 4 weeks before being planted. The seedlings were planted out in two parts starting on May 28th 2023. This photo was taken September 1st 2023.