I'd like to thank everybody who's participating so far.
I have not been posting in #mc2022 myself, but I have been reading and voting.
Preparations
On the 12th of May, I made preparations, but did not post about them until now.
This is what it looked like when I started.
As you can see, the ground is dry and covered in grass and weeds.
I cut some of it and made some hay as bedding for my animals.
Then I started digging over the soil.
At this point, this is the most effective method to get rid of the weeds and grass.
First, I established a trench, which I move along as I go.
This trench is also helpful to incorporate manure from my animals.
With digging over this style, there is one important concept:
At the end, the top soil should be at the bottom.
I try to brake up all lumps and level out the soil with a rake or tiller every few rows of digging.
From this point on, I do not step on that soil again, to not compact it.
Observations
The soil was very dry.
It did not rain in spring, which is unusual and bad for the vegetation.
This is also why I was in no particular rush to plant the corn.
I would have to wait for rain anyways.
Mulching
After reading and watching a lot of material about regenerative agriculture, I tried sheet-mulching/chop & drop style of weed managment on this patch some years ago.
Normally, I dig over every plot, every year like described above.
As an experiment, I had not dug over or even weeded this particular patch, for 3 years, but only mulched it.
I am impressed by the effect the mulching had.
Just by looking at the soil I can tell it's got more compost in it.
There is plenty of life - More than on the plots I kept on digging over each year.
I do not want these particular bugs under my plants...
Conclusion
From experiment with mulching I came to no conclusion.
Mulching has some benefits. So does digging over the plot, like we have always done it.
I will do some more testing and dedicate a seperate post to it some time later.
Garden impressions
I liked the lighting, so I took some pictures and would like to share some impressions from my garden that day:
Rain
I rely on rain solely for my maize plants.
Yesterday, we finally got some rain and more is forecast for the next days.
Today might be the only day I will be able to plant.
If it stays this dry for the rest of summer, it will be a serious problem for my garden.
Later today, I will plant.
I hope things go well and that I will get at least some rain this year.