In February (ok, January), our thoughts on planting seeds resume. To be fair, Permaculture has no beginning (or end) so we never really stopped, but it's also realistic to recognize that last October/November, when our thoughts turned to grape juice canning and the warm weather turned its back on us, we tend to turn our back on the garden just as loyal-less-ly...
Luckily, minus the volatile wild fluctuations brought on by rapid global climate change, warmer weather is returning to us, and we to the garden. At this time of year, we think of cool weather crops, early starts, and the long growing season (fall-harvest) plants which need lots of days to mature (and pretty much in that order, too)! In accordance with that schedule, first we would plant snow peas, then we would think about tomatoes and peppers, and finally brussels sprouts, beets, broccoli, late carrots, onions, cabbage...
The first step in prep is to get a flat of 4" pots. These live in the shed. They need to be labeled, which means you need to look at your seed stash and see what you want to plant. Then you need to warm up the white grease pencil (which lives at the back of the greenhouse). Each pot gets labeled with the year, month and day, the name of the plant, and whether it is determinate (grows to a specific height) or indeterminate (needs trellised). If it is snow peas, and I'm growing them specifically for trellis planting, I won't bother including this on the label. You want the information you need and no more, bc writing on the pots is somewhat tedious (and also needs to be cleaned off after transplanting). Every second you can save in one place is a second you can spend elsewhere.
Once the pots are prepared, they need filled with soil. The soil is harvested from around the compost bins; behind it being the nicest, most plentiful, and most difficult to access. To the right (west) of it is the easiest to access and usually pretty good quality for a limited time. In front of it is the most compacted, but the soil height does need to be brought down intermittently. Pick a spot... The "hay fork" is recommended, as its tines are the closest together. This allows you to skim off the top layer of soil with the loss of or damage to as few worms as possible. The chickens will come to help you out!
Take the ash bucket sifter and find the stick we use to hold it up when placed on the wheelbarrow:
This is a pretty highly appreciated 1x2 stick, which hopes to live on the right side of the right-hand compost bin (by right, I mean when you are facing it, which is technically west). Using the small ash bucket screen is a new (this year) approach which I like a lot. In order to do this using the wheelbarrow, a second coveted 1x2x~3' stick could be useful. I'm sure there's one laying around, I just haven't slown down to look yet.
One scoop is about all this sifter wants to handle.
As you screen the soil through, the garbage will remain behind and goes into the garbage bucket which should be right there. Rocks also should have a bucket for redepositing into the driveway (cruddy chunks of concrete or other debris not suitable for driveway use should be considered garbage). Compost "fines" which are the coarse remains, get recomposted.
