20F

Total : 35 Hours

It doesn't matter how early you go outside to work in the garden when its 20F outside. At the end of the day you will realize that, not for lack of effort, you've not gotten as far as you would have liked. Everything moves a little slower at 20F. Over the last day or two I've managed to double-dig three beds in the front yard. The previous idea was to shovel off the top inch or two of dirt to remove the sod/roots. Take that layer and place it in a pile in the backyard to compost itself for a season in attempt to have the beds weed and grub free. New idea (Less wheel-barrowing) is to dig off the sod layer, set it to the side, dig the topsoil layer and move that, dig the clay/sand layer with a fork, then layer the inverted sod on top(roots up/grass down), then add back the 8 inches of aerated top soil over it. After some conversations and videos with other gardeners I believe that its buried deep enough to kill the grass and weeds while giving it a green manure of sort. All in all less moving for me. WOOT.

This afternoon's test run of this improved version worked marvelously. I was still able to find a large number of grubs and some sort of soil millipede looking creatures to remove. Any ideas on what the dark, shiny, black millipede looking bugs buried in the soil at grub level are?

Tomorrow should be a bit warmer. Here's to making progress before last frost hits!