What should we do to prepare our land for next year?

[intothewoods]

We are about to buy land up north near Chiang Mai and right now there are longan trees on it. We let a local farmer (our neighbor) take care of the harvest this year.

In the future we plan on growing all sorts of vegetables for our own consumption. Is there something we can do today or let our neighbor do during this year to get the soil ready for us growing our own vegetables?

The longan trees were fertilized with pig manure in the past. There is no spraying going on in the area.

Our neighbor offered us already to take care of the plot and we can also use water from his ponds but we plan on digging our own pond on the side of the plot where we have access to a stream. Is this something we have to do now so that we are ready to use it in a year?

We plan to spend another year in Bangkok before starting to build our house up north and just get into researching all details. Because we are in Chiang Mai in a few days it would be great to get things going and set up for the year.

So any recommendations what we can do for the land now would be very much appreciated.

[jamescollister]

If you are growing vegetables, see if there are any old charcoal burners around, buy the dark soil from around the burner and plow it into your veggie patch. Does wonder for the soil. Jim