Baymule's 2018 Garden

[baymule]

I made wood shelves from 2 strips of scrap OSB leftover from building the porch. I painted them with a bottom of the bucket ceiling paint leftover from when I painted the house. The LED light strips had little mounting clips. I screwed the clips on the boards and zip tied them to the wire shelves. I got to the top and needed a way to mount the top 3, so I got another board and painted it. I’ll finish up tomorrow.

 

[baymule]

Today I worked on rabbit proofing the garden. I raked away 4” of rich black soil from the fence. It came from the pine shavings we put down 3 years ago.

I sprawled our in the dirt, hog ringing chicken wire to the garden fence.

I had help.

I got 50’ of chicken wire hog ringed to the fence and 25’ of plastic coated chicken wire hog ringed to the bottom of the fence, laid flat on the ground to keep the VARMITS from digging under.

 

[baymule]

Today DH joined me on working on the rabbit fence. I rolled out another roll of green plastic coated chicken wire on the ground and hog ringed it to the bottom of the garden fence. I hog ringed another roll of chicken wire to the fence and laid 2 more rolls on the ground. DH laid paper Feed sacks and cardboard over what I laid yesterday and covered it with wood chip mulch.

He had to dump mulch in the wagon and take to the end.

Dumping from the tractor is much easier!

Almost done.

A good days work! I have used almost three pounds of hog rings. My right hand is sore.

 

[baymule]

One question though - what is the burried cardboard for?

It smothers out weeds. I used to save paper feed sacks for the garden, still do, but now we have 2 bales of cardboard. Our soil is pure sand, think beach without the ocean. The wood chip mulch is building soil, but weeds still poke through. Hence, the cardboard. In some areas, I plant seeds, so no cardboard. But where I plant plants, I cut a hole in the cardboard, insert plant, and no weeds.

Oh, the GREEN won't last. The clovers will burn up as will the winter rye grass. Then we'll be left with struggling Bahia and Bermuda grass that we are trying to encourage to grow. I swear, maybe I should be out there at dark, reading the grass a story, tucking it in bed and waking up the grass in the mornings with coffee and whateverthehell it wants for breakfast.

 

[baymule]

Volunteer watermelons from rinds tossed to the pigs last fall!

 

[baymule]

How do you like the purple cherokees ? I was thinking about planting some this year

They are on my plant forever list. I am always trying new (to me) varieties, but when I find a keeper, I keep seed and plant it again and again. I can and dehydrate the Cherokee Purple tomatoes. We refuse to buy store bought tomatoes, so I crumble the dehydrated Cherokee Purple tomato slices over our salads. YUM!

 

[baymule]

Today my husband dragged some very heavy, wet, triple thick pumpkin boxes to a corner of the garden that we haven’t planted yet. We got the boxes last October.

Then he got Marigold and dumped loads of wood chip mulch on the boxes. There are a lot of weeds to smother out!

 

[baymule]

Today our friend brought his 10 year old son over to "work" for us. He and I stripped tape off boxes until 2:00 when his Dad came back for him. I can really go to town on some weeds now! That little boy loves to come over here.

 

[baymule]

I have very little growing in the garden. I over loaded myself with building a Pig Palace, growing out and butchering 44 Cornish Cross meat chickens, been babysitting a LOT to help our DD out. And various other things that have popped up and kept me running at full speed.

The tomatoes I planted are blooming and most are doing well. The squash is about done. I got a wash pan of onions and I canned 4 pints of beets. I have 2 flats of Silver Queen corn ready to plant.

We have worked hard in the garden, pulling weeds that were already 4 feet high. Wednesday and yesterday we cleaned out the horse barn and scraped up manure around the barn. I have a 31 year old Tennessee Walker mare that has breathing issues, I guess the horse version of COPD. Because of the sand, when it's dry it is clouds of dust and she coughs, hacks and struggles to breathe. Over a year ago, we got over 100 loads of wood chips from power line contractors and we covered up the barn area to keep the dust down for her. We place the round bales of hay and they eat and poop. So we had all this nice, rich, black soil.........

It has been so dry, the manure is pulverized powder. That sure makes it lighter to shovel! We used the mule and the tractor. DH scooped poop and got 4-5 scoops piled on the mule, then I drove it to the garden and raked it out. Our 10 year old helper came half a day Wednesday and until 3:00 yesterday. he was a huge help. We got a 30'x50' plot about 6 inches to a foot deep in composted hay and horse manure. I am running the water sprinkler on it all day. After 3 hours I checked it and only the top inch or 2 was wet. All that rotted hay and manure sure soaks up the water. We will cover it with cardboard and wood chip mulch tomorrow. Then I will plant purple hull peas.

I have another section where I dumped 2 loads, have another load on the mule to spread on it too. We'll work on it tomorrow. Today we are taking a well deserved rest! That plot is where I'm going to plant the Silver Queen corn.

So while we haven't set any records growing vegetables this season, the work we are doing will sure pay dividends later. Smothering out the weeds, layering the cardboard and manure from the horses, sheep and chickens ought to make next years garden grow like crazy.

 

[baymule]

It just gets better every year. Don't to get to take the time and smell the roses.

Don't have roses, what about sniffing horse apples? LOL