My Mini City Farm is Moving! - Part 1 - Understanding This New Land

Well we have embarked on the grand adventure of moving the farm to a slightly larger space. From what we can tell, the yard was lovingly maintained for a long time but had grown over in the last few years. The entire thing was weeds that were inadvertently being spread through the compost and the wind. 

Protip, don't put hearty weed seeds in the cold compost pile, they just lay dormant until they are spread in the garden. 

As you can see from the photo, it's bad. What looks brown is dead and seeded foxtails. That's dangerous for Lolli the Dog and for our feet so they had to go. 

Starting the Weeding Process

We started the day very optimistic. Too optimistic. We got down on our hands and knees and spent 3 hours pulling weeds from the garden bed and the rock areas. I'm not going to lie, this was hard. It was a heat wave and the temperature got up to 92F that day. As much water as I drank, I still ended up with heat exhaustion. 

I would advise against getting heat exhaustion. Sure, "seems obvious" you might say, but honestly it sneaks up on you. I tried standing up, and out of nowhere, I almost passed out. I felt fine before standing up. After almost busting my butt on the pavement, I started to get irritable and I developed a pretty bad headache. It took almost 3 hours after resting, drinking water, and eating before I finally started to feel normal again. Seriously, take care of yourself people. 

We started with the garden bed and rock areas first because we wanted to hurry and get some of our seeds started. It was a bit late in the season, so I was anxious that they wouldn't sprout. Bush beans went in along with radishes and onions. We will see if any of these come to fruition, but hey, this is all an adventure even if it doesn't work out. 

Day 1 Issues

We ran into some problems that we didn't fully anticipate. Upon further inspection, we found a few water spigots that we didn't know existed. That meant that our grand plan to fully till the yard would need to be carefully thought out. In case you weren't sure how plumbing works, where you find a spigot, you will find an underground water line leading to it. 

Something you absolutely need to do before digging in your yard is to find out where the water lines are. For us, we call 811 and someone comes out to mark the water line. Your area may be different, so make sure to check before digging. Hitting a water line can cause some pretty major problems for you if you don't. 

For all of the issues we had that day, it actually went pretty well. We learned a lot about the types of weeds we were dealing with and how best to handle them. 

This new Mini City Farm location is coming together, slowly but surely.

Check back for Part 2!