dulichthegioimoi

Ok I am guilty. I haven't posted in sooooo long. And not because I am not gardening anymore, on the contrary. I have been busy. Well very busy. This year I have expanded my garden vastly and now the entire backyard is dedicated to vegetable growing. I am still in the process of planting things as the weather this year is not keen on cooperating and it's still very hot in the day (at least the nights are cooler).
So here is what I have been upto the past few weeks.
First of all I had the part of the backyard that was covered in interlock tiles cleared up. It was around 4x4 m. Then I ordered red sweet sand from RAK. I ordered 20 cubic tons which cost me about 700 aed. I needed the sand cuz my backyard wasn't level and there were places that were actually lacking a lot of sand. I decided to use sweet sand as it has less salt.  That was brought into the garden with the help of a bobcat (haha I know what it is now, the little thing that looks like a mini tractor). Then I had the sand leveled. After this I (now it's really me and not someone who I hired prior to this step) created the beds. I wanted to do wood but I had already spent way too much on sand, the labor costs, the manures and coco peat as you'll read below so this year this didn't happen. I made beds around 120 cm by 4 to 5 meters wide. On one part of the garden they're 4 m and on the other they're around 5 m. I made 12 of these. The pathways between each (except the center one which is a bit wider) are 60 cm.
When the beds were ready I had them filled with my mix (I did roughly 1/3 of the filling myself and I can tell you it's a very hard job). I have roughly 720 square feet of growing space so it's a lot of work. For the soil mix  this year I used the following: coco peat from Shalimar (45 dhs per 400 l bag, I used 6 bags), compost from Tadweer (I negotiated for 7 dhs per 25 kg bag and I used 18 bags), mixed manure (it's chicken  and cow manure and I used 18 bags with each costing 7 dhs), I also used cow manure (18 bags @ 7 dhs each) and I also used 1 bag of vermicompost from Shalimar (50 kgs bag @ 100 dhs). All of this was evenly mixed into the beds (well not all as I used it for other plants and other beds). So roughly each 1.2x1.2 m space received 1/2 bag mixed manure, 1/2 bag cow manure, 1/2 bag compost, and around 60l of coco peat. I realized these calculations are wrong. Per 1.2mx1.2m space I roughly used: 1/4 bag of cow manure, 1/4 bag mixed  manure, 1/8 bag of compost (this bag is bigger than the manures so by volume roughly the same), and 50l (this will expand) of coco peat. This makes it roughly a mix of 50% sand 50% (manures, compost and peat) by volume if you amend your soil to a 15 cm depth.
Why I chose this mix? Our soil is sand so it doesn't hold neither nutrients nor water very well and also lacks texture. To add texture and to add water and nutrient holding abilities I decided to get coco peat. I chose coco peat over peat moss as its more sustainable. Peat moss takes longer to renew and is harvested at alarmingly high rate. Though there's some research proving otherwise I decided to be on the safer side as I don't only want to grow food but I want to do so responsibly and sustainably. After adding texture I needed to add something that would provide nutrients as coco peat doesn't have any. I went with manures and compost. Ideally I would get 5 different types (this is what is recommend by Mel, the founder of square foot gardening method which I try to follow). But since we don't get many types here I ended up using 4. Since you can classify manure as compost I had 2 different types already. Plant compost from Tadweer was number 3 and vermicompost from Shalimar was number 4. Using the square foot gardening recommendation I'd have to also add vermiculite. I searched and searched and searched and never found it (retail) so I omitted it altogether. I know perlite would be an alternative but I hate working with it so didn't get it.
After everything was mixed I watered the beds and let it sit for a few days. And then I started planting. And planting. And planting. And I'm still planting (this is the hardest part so far). I didn't realize how long it will take me. I had to write what I'll plant where. Since I use companion planting I had to incorporate and plan for that (though I didn't do it as well as I'd hoped for). I had to plan well cuz some of the garden is located in a location that receives only morning sun so I had to accommodate for that by planting that area with shade tolerant plants. Well I am almost done with planting and a few things have already sprouted. I know I'm behind schedule and this year last year I had a lot more growing already. But this year is hotter anyway so I hope I didn't mess up.
Anyways here are some pics that I took along.