Gardening never ends

I have been ambitious this morning and worked up a new raised bed for spring planting. I took my compost pile apart and split it between my tumbling barrel, a plastic trash can, and an old tree pot. I have used the trash can and tree pot for overflow composting before, and with winter coming on, it seemed the best option. That left me with just enough well composted materials to fill a raised bed on the spot where the compost pile was.

That particular spot has been used as a "storage" spot for leaves and grass clippings for about 2 years now, and clay soil underneath has developed a nice healthy color. There were some mambo sized worms in there when I was moving it all around. That tells me that the soil has definitely improved since I started piling leaves there. My little cultivator loosened the soil very easily, another indicator that things are looking up there. I am thinking that will be a good spot for melons or squash or something in the Spring.

A couple of weeks ago, I worked up a really small area in the northwest corner of the yard. It is only about 2' X 5' and I am thinking I might be able to trellis up some cucumbers there or something. I don't think it will really be good for much else, but I did work in some finished compost so at least it isn't all clay.

I am also thinking that I might move the beans next year to garden and put tomatoes in the raised bed where the beans were. It should help to keep the critters out of it since the dog can get all the way around it. She knows that she can't get in the garden so keeping the rodents out has been difficult since it butts up against the shed. The darned things just crawl out from under the shed and go to grazing. I have lost a lot of tomatoes that way this year.

So the actual garden spot will be for beans I think. Tomatoes in the raised bed, squash and cukes in the new beds, and maybe some lettuce in pots or something. I don't know yet, maybe. After all, I have all of these seeds I will need to use.

If I can just keep the pests out of it, we should be good on veggies.