First Harvest!!

Monday was a bust due to heavy thunderstorms in our neck of the woods. I spent the majority of it with a scared Pointer up under me trying to get away from the loud thunder.

Tonight we got a lot done considering there are thunderstorms all around us threatening to pour on us at any given minute. But, we just had to see how much the veggies have grown since Sunday with all the rain since then! And boy did we see some growth...

Check out the squash...

The baby corn stalks planted just 10 days ago from seeds is moving on up!

The peas and beans are still going strong.

Everything seems to be filling in quite well.

Found some 7-dust and powdered the heck out of the apple trees since the limbs/leaves were FULL of japanese beetles again. There must have been 50+ of those suckers between the two trees. Just hope the dust stays on with all the more storms coming through the area all this weeThe
We also re-applied the repellent mix to the deer/varmint perimeter plot-saver fence material tonight hoping to continue to keep them out. And since the rain held off we were able to put out two entire bags of organic fertilizer on everything.

And while we had the time, Hubby went ahead and installed another level of the plot-saver fencing material to the existing stakes.

Also, Hubby did manage to get a little sanding done on the ol' workbench tonight too..

And to top the evening off (as we were rushing to get to the truck and home out of the storm's path) Hubby cut off the first batch of cucumbers!

So proud of our FIRST harvest!!!

How Does The Garden Grow?

Just a few photos of the garden from Thursday night before another hellacious storm came in and dumped even more precious rain water on the garden!

Look how high the beans are reaching up!



The blue berry bushes have a few berries...



Baby corn sprouting up from the seeds planted just last Saturday!



The sweet potatoes are spreading like crazy!



And even though we had so much rain up until last week, the garden was dry as a bone on Thursday... so watering from the well helped.



All the while Hubby has been diligently working on his man cave work bench...

Watching the Garden Grow

We have not spent a lot of time actually working in the garden these past couple of nights due to lack of time, still waiting on the soil to dry out, etc. Here are a few progress photos though:

The green beans are really running up the twine!

More baby squash!

The cucumbers have really grown and grabbed onto the twine since stringing it on Saturday!

The peas and tomatoes are getting big quick!

The pepper plants are busting out!

Meanwhile, back at the house, the jalapenos are popping!

And Hubby has been busy each night after work installing the wood on his work bench. Lots of sawing and hammering going on in the barn this week!

Oh and last but not least, my sidekick discovered the folding chairs last night. She really digs them versus the hard concrete slab floor. Ha!

Driving Posts & Cutting Bamboo & Work Bench Construction- Part 3!

One of the things us farmers do is check the weather. And we check it often. The local forecast has been calling for storms on this day since mid-this-past-week. As of this morning, the weather forecast was showing thunderstorms starting around 2-3pm. So the whole day is planned around that event happening in that time slot.... We started out heading to the closest metropolis, LaGrange for garden supplies and workshop materials... plus a trip to the grocery store. Home by late morning, on farm working by noon hour.

First off, Hubby went ahead and drove some new posts for me into the ground in/outside the run between my 2 rows of cucumbers. I am eventually going to build a tee-pee formation rack system up to these posts for my cucumbers to run up. But, the cuke plants are not quite big enough to starting "running" yet... so we have a little time before we have to construct it.





After all that manual labor of post-driving and once "BJ" arrived, Hubby retired to the barn out of the blazing hot sun... And Hubby and "BJ" were nice enough to start off by making me some stakes as requested. 18 inch long rebar pieces heated up and bent into a "J" formation for me to drive into the ground. I could tell they really enjoyed this task.











Once the stakes cooled down, I took them out to the garden and drove them into the dirt to pull the baling twine down closer to the pole bean plants. This will get them close enough in hoping the rain today would help the plants grow up and grab onto/run up the twine!





I did remember to pick up a few more tomato cages today while we were at the home improvement store... so I set those up on my five large tomato plants.



It was blazing hot today, but the boys still continued on with their welding and cutting today on the work bench.







This is going to be one heckuva work bench I tell ya!

I forgot to mention that "BJ" brought me some bamboo today. I am very excited to make some posts, stakes, etc. out of this natural homegrown plant/tree!
Here is what it looked like BEFORE I got a hold of it:



And this is the AFTER photo... after I ninja-fied it w/ an old dirty machete!