How to prepare the ground and make furrows: complete guide

Today we will see how to prepare the garden ground and make furrows. Watching the cool videos that Álvaro makes, I have gotten a bit of healthy envy and I have decided to make my own section on AgrohuertoTV , our YouTube channel .

Agriculture for rurbanites

It is called «Agriculture for RURBANITAS» , that is to say, agriculture for those who, being entirely from the city, want to undertake the adventure of cultivating a garden , either at home with a few pots , on a terrace , on the grounds of a chalet or in some neighborhood community garden .

They will be very simple and educational videos for those who have not had much contact with agriculture , although I will also try to record visits to some orchards and testimonies of their participants , so that you can see different ways of practicing organic farming.

The first of these videos, that is, the one in this article, talks about how to prepare a land that was previously full of herbs and turn it into furrows to plant or transplant our crop.

The recording is not entirely good, it is my first video, but I hope it is enough to illustrate how you should do it, and I promise to improve it for the next ones.

Tools for preparing the ground and making furrows

The first thing is to prepare the necessary tools to carry out our work:

• Hoe: It is the main tool since with it we are going to till the land , lift the weeds and dig those furrows that interest us.
• Rake: It is not essential but it helps a lot. With it we will smooth the ground while removing weeds that may have remained in the bed.
• Gloves: If you do not want to leave your skin and fill your hand with calluses and blisters, I recommend that you use them, you will appreciate it! In addition, the shafts of the implements are usually made of wood and you can nail splinters, so if you wear gloves you will avoid this uncomfortable mishap.
• Cap, hat, cap … whatever you like the most: Very very very important if you are working in full sun! I recommend that you avoid the hours of maximum sunlight to avoid heat stroke, and that you use sun protection. Although it seems like a beach warning more than an orchard, sometimes we do not realize the amount of radiation we are receiving and the problems that it can cause to our health.

I have chosen these tools because they were the ones I had at hand, but you have other types of manual implements that can help you work your garden. You can consult the article « Manual Implements to Cultivate the Garden « where I talk about the great variety that exists in the market.

How to prepare the ground step by step

Once we have everything we need, we are going to start preparing the ground. I do not know if you appreciate how the land in the video was, but it was full of weeds because it had not worked all winter, and finally I left it without a single one.

That is what we intend in this first step, to eliminate weeds and achieve a soft soil, without compaction that allows good aeration and water retention for the correct development of our crop.

Before going to drive the hoe of it is very important that you make sure that the ground is in temperature …

What is tempero?

Let’s say that the temperature is the optimal state of the terrain to carry out work on it. It really is a point of humidity, neither too dry nor too humid. 

If dust comes out of the ground when plowing … WRONG! The soil is too dry to do the work and can lead to erosion loss. What I recommend in this case is that you add irrigation and wait for it to dry, although not too much.

In the video I tell you to wait the next day, but this is only indicative, sometimes you will have to wait a little longer and in others a little less, depending on the climate and the type of soil . The important thing is that you notice that it has an adequate amount of humidity, since we are not interested in it being too wet.

In the video I did not water because it had been raining the day before and the humidity point was adequate to start the tillage.

Nail the hoe and smooth the ground

Once the ground is in the right condition to plow, it ‘s time to start the hard work . You must take the hoe and start to drive it into the ground using a lever movement to lift the earth and unpin the roots of the weeds . Try to pull them out completely, that is, from the roots, otherwise they will very likely grow back easily. Some of them will be difficult to pull off, they hold on very tightly!

After a while of effort and work you will have your land free of weeds and light . Take the rake and smooth the ground by sweeping up the remnants of weeds that we have removed. It is ready to sow or plant if you do not want to do it in rows. 

How to make grooves in the ground

To create the furrows you must take the hoe again. You have to make rows of mounds of earth with a channel in the middle through which the irrigation water will pass. You have to drop ground to one side and the other as I do in the video. You do not need to hammer the hoe much, do not go overboard. 

This is all, I hope you liked the article and the video and, above all, that it has helped you to prepare your land and make furrows in your urban garden. I wait for you in the next article!