prep lawn to be spring garden? - zone 6a

Hi,
We are planning to change a bunch of our backyard lawn into four areas for gardening this spring. One big area will be a vegetable garden. The other will be for about 8-12 fruit trees. And, between the fruit tree area and a back fence we want an asparagus bed. The last one is a corner in the front part where I want two artichoke plants.

Here's the trouble, I'm from the southwest desert. Now, we're in southwest Indiana (zone 6a?), and we've NEVER done ANY gardening. So, I bought some gardening books and got a few catalogs to help learn about what we'll do in the spring. But, for now, before it's too cold, we want to know how to best prepare the area to make it ready for working this spring.

It 's all lawn now. We already removed all the overgrown shrubs and a lot of weeds. I would appreciate any advice about how we can do a good job for as cheap as possible. Thank you.

" . . . a good job for as cheap as possible . . ."

This means doing the labor youself and mostly using free materials instead of visiting the local garden center.

As they say, different strokes for different folks, so others will have different ideas, but here's 2c worth. The good bit of initial work is rewarded with years of reduced effort and of abundant and quality harvest.

A soil analysis would the one of the first orders of business. At the same time, I'd prep the soil by tilling in leaves, stable straw, sawdust, horse apples and similar material where the garden and the asparagus will be. Needed amendments indicated by the soil analysis (such as lime, perhaps) go in at the same time. In the process, I'd remove as many grass stems and roots as possible. One choice is to de-sod, but a lot of top soil leaves with the sod. How much material to till in depends on the quality of your native soil. Really bad soil needs a LOT. Then cover with 4 to 6" of leaves and over-winter for tilling in next spring. In subsequent years, it'll likely be sufficient just to cover with the leaves in the fall.

This fall the good citizens of Evansville will thoughtfully bag tons of leaves and put them right by the curb for you. And most stables and horse owners will gladly donate truckloads (your truck, your labor) of stuff. With luck they may have some bales of spoiled horse hay, which makes great mulch after it composts.

A third fall chore for next gardening season would be to collect and compost material to mulch with next year. A simple picket fence enclosure looks tidy and contains the material as it decomposes. How big an enclosure? Hmmm . . .. let's see . . . a 16'x32' garden area is 512 sq ft, mulched 2" deep, that's 85+ cu ft of mulch, which would be about 170+ cu ft before composting, which if piled 30" ft deep in the enclosure would be about 68 sq ft enclosed, which would be approx 7' x 10'.

What and when to plant, husbandry, pest control, , , , , topics for another day

Enjoy!!

Frank