Slow and Steady Progress

I had a most inspiring thing happen this week. I got to spend a short amount of time working in my beloved vegetable garden. I spent so many hours last year building the garden, digging in beds, adding manure, planting and nurturing. And we had a wonderfully abundant garden over summer. But between having a new baby and those chickens, well, it's kind of gone to ruin.

The bed in question. Complete with chunks of clay like rocks. And [some of] those chickens.

As it stands, there are some beds nicely laid out still, and some that have almost entirely been reclaimed by weeds. In a lot of ways, I will be starting all over again. Except for one very important difference - the soil! Our soils are clay. Plain and simple, just clay. Last year, when planting, my philosophy was that if anything actually grows in these soils, it will be a bonus. If nothing else, the plantings, and manure and fertiliser and pea straw, would ultimately condition the soil, thereby making for a better garden in the future.

This week was the first time in six months [probably longer if I think about it] that I've taken a pitch fork to the soil. The bed that I grew all my potatoes in last summer. The bed that was solid chunks of clay - reddish, fist-sized chunks of clay that were more like rocks and took a lot of breaking up, only to form into new chunks with watering. And not a worm to be seen. But not anymore. To my delight, the soil is a deep, dark brown colour. It is significantly finer than it was last year, with barely any red rock-like chunks. And it is full of worms!

I am just amazed at how quickly the soil has improved. I mean it's still pretty heavy, don't get me wrong, it's not exactly loam yet. But the difference between last year and this year is much more than I would have ever imagined. It was a real boost to my stamina on the long road to a simpler life. Even though I've not been able to do much gardening this year, we are still making excellent progress, as a result of the work put in last year and over summer. Oh and those chickens scratching around in there, no doubt that helped too. 

So naturally I was very, very happy [just getting my gloved hands in the dirt felt wonderful], and put out a bunch of seeds to celebrate. Spinach and broad beens, in only half of the bed. Next week I'm hoping to plant out the rest of the bed. I'm not looking at how much of a mess the rest of the garden still is. Right now I'm just grateful that I'm getting to spend some time out in the garden and get some new things growing. And that our longer term plans for awesome soil are very much on track. Slow and steady progress my friends, slow and steady progress.