It's been a minute since I have written anything let alone even visited this site but gardening season is coming ever so fast and I am needing to get busy planning my garden for 2024.
I did finally get all the bulbs planted a few days after Christmas and just in time before winter decided to visit. It has been cold and wet since Christmas.
We have been enduring an arctic blast for the past week or so with temps below zero and windchills down to -20. We have used all of our firewood so the house just isn't as warm and cozy with just the central heating.
We have had about 7 inches of snow total since January 1, 2024 which is mostly still on the ground, but it is finally warming up outside and should all melt off within the next week or so. Day temps back in the 40's! Whoop! Night temps in the teens so that will help kill off pests.
Spring is right around the corner and I need to prepare for seed starting and hubs needs to get his rear in gear and get my raised beds built. I'm not doing in ground planting in this sand anymore and the tubs I used last year didn't work well. We are either going to up our food growing garden space or not do it at all. I'm tired of working my tail off for failure. We are either all in or all out.
I gotta do something with grasshoppers and sandburs as well. Those two issues are our greatest challenge to growing anything aside from the poor soil.
I can't get my hands on NOLO Bait anymore and I don't know why. I guess it's been outlawed or something since I haven't been able to get it for a couple of years now.
Maybe if we till the soil a couple of times to expose grasshopper eggs to the cold this winter but that brings sandburs to the surface and makes the weeds worse. At least sandburs doesn't eat everything in sight like the locust hoard of grasshoppers does. It's worth a shot, I guess.
I don't want to spray any kind of pre-emergent herbicides or insecticides. I want to grow as naturally as I possibly can. What is the point of growing a garden if a person kills all the life already in the garden both beneficials and pests? I suppose the pests have their role in the ecosystem as well. They are just a pest to me. 
And if I am growing plants for the pollinators I don't want to lure them in and feed them just to off them with -icides.
Welp, I need to plan some more... 
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