Behind Schedule - Or Are We?

It sure feels like I'm behind last year's schedule, but after reviewing last year's garden notes - not yet!  Yesterday we came a long way in getting ready for this year's garden season.  I hired Smoker Excavating to put a sluice in the ditch that divides our property so we can get in and out of the garden with heavy equipment (dump truck loads of mushroom soil, for example), without running over our water line from the well.
   He removed the stump pile from above the garden and leveled it out.  The top soil from the roots looks like the best soil on the property!  It's too bad that we didn't have that area cleaned up before we made our garden!  I also had him bring in a tri-axle load of mushroom soil, about 30 yards worth.
   I wish I would have had him come in last fall instead of the kid I did hire.  I think the garden would have been ready for easy tilling instead of the back-breaking work we have ahead of us to remove the roots and rocks the other guy buried.
   One last note on excavating - if you hire an excavator make sure you're able to be present during the entire job.  Questions always come up and the excavator might have a pretty good idea on what you want, but if you're not there to make sure it's EXACTLY what you want, you may not get it.  Everyone has a different picture in their mind and you need to be on hand to provide some direction when your picture and the excavator's don't match precisely.  Using yesterday for an example, David and I had a different idea on where the sluice pipe was going to be placed, had I not been there it would have been 20 feet further down the ditch than where I wanted it.  It still would have worked, but it wouldn't have been where I planned it to be which would have interfered with my ideas for the future.
   Back to the garden.
   We are now on par with last year's schedule, except for planting onions.  Last year we didn't plant them until May 1st and most of them didn't get very big. This year we planted some around March 24th and they're already as tall as the garlic!  I hope we get enough large bulbs to can all of our spaghetti sauce with them this year.  Last year we had to buy a 25lb bag to finish.
   I finished reviewing last year's notes.  We didn't buy our plants until May 15th and couldn't even start planting them until the 21st, finishing on the 26th.  I need to take a deep breath and relax, instead of trying to work in the mud like I just did!