Planting the Garden - Day 2

What do crazy country folk do on a Saturday night after spending 10 hours working in the garden all that day? They go to town for supper out and then buy MORE veggies to plant in the garden the next day! Can you say gluttons?? That's right, we bought quite a few more plants to "fill in the gaps" in the garden. (Say what?) So Sunday brought on more veggie planting for me while Hubby cut the front 3+ acres of grass...



I planted seven pepper plants, more tomatoes, two more cherry tomatoes, two eggplants, and 8 watermelon plants. What a variety! And then I had to go back to the oh-so-painful seed planting... 3 full long rows of pink-eyed peas and 4 half rows of pole beans.



Of course, I had my shadow the pea thief with me again...



And I have to tell you (more like cry and whine to you) that I felt like I run a marathon again after all this planting... I do not know how my Grandparents did this!! Even so, there was more work to be done... so I proceeded to hand scoop out three entire bags of pine mulch on top of the raised beds to keep the moisture in them while Hubby set up our sprinkler system to run off the well. Once we had our sprinklers set up, we ran them until the well ran dry. Hmmmmmmm... This could be an issue down the road...?

Oh well for now... but, doesn't the view look nice?

Beware!

How many ticks can one pull off a dog after a full day on the farm?



Seriously? Poor girl!

Planting the Garden - Day 1

Saturday was another great productive day on the farm for us! After working the delivered top soil into the plot with the new tiller attachment over and over throughout the morning, Hubby had the garden area ready for cutting rows.





All the while this was going on, I had started setting out and planting in the raised beds. I planted all of the strawberries in one bed, one tomato plant in each bed, all of my sweet potatoes in the 2nd bed, a couple of cabbages in the same, and then my herbs (rosemary and cilantros) along with one squash and one zucchini in the 3rd bed. You see you have to really pay attention to how big the actual plant will grow to in order to know how much room you need to fit with the other plants into the same bed. Mathematics in the garden!



Once the beds were fully planted, Hubby had the garden rowed about the same time...



So I moved on into the garden and proceeded to plant every last one of the other plants we had on hand: More tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and the remaining squash, zucchini and cabbages.



At the same time, Hubby was seeding the perimeters around the garden and raised bed areas with fescue seeds to try and stabilize the soil with grass.



I forgot to mention I made a trip to the local feed store earlier in the morning to check out their veggie seeds. I picked up seeds for sweet corn, pole beans and pink-eyed peas. After planting all of the other veggie plants, I managed to plant the seeds for the sweet corn. I have to say what a pain-staking process! I do not know how farmers could stoop over for hours on end planting seeds. OUCH!



This was the position I stood in for what felt like hours on end. Of course, I had some help (notice dogs- one who just wanted to sleep between the rows and the other wanted to eat the seeds)... But, I know there has to be a better way!!




These were most of my views of the dogs while seeding towards the end of the day. They were so tired from watching us plant the garden! And this girl was beat too: aching back, knees and hips. Ouch!
But, the view at the end of the day made it all worth the effort!

Working in the Top Soil

Oh my aching body, we had a super productive afternoon and evening on Friday! I took off work early and met my relative "BJ" at the farm. He helped me bolt on the auger bit attachment to the tractor and then proceeded to help me bore all 12 holes for the three raised bed corner posts.



I could not take photos of my part in this whole drilling holes act, but I am here to tell you it involves lots of hand work with a set of post hole diggers and my back is still aching just thing about it. The auger bit is a very heavy, clunky piece of steel that has to be lead into the right spot and held there for direction. On several holes it would try to snake away from the exact spot to drill and start drilling on an angle. Very manual hand work leading it...

I forgot to mention I had a 16 yard load of top soil delivered on Friday morning. And Hubby picked up some bags of drainage rocks for the bed bottoms.



Once the beds were lowered into the augered holes, we were ready to spread the drainage rock and back fill the posts.




Next, it was time to fill the raised beds with top soil mixed with a tad of fertilizer.



Once the beds were full up, we then spread the rest of the top soil into the area where the garden will be. It was dark by the time we got the top soil moved around. Even with the headlights on the tractor, it would wait until morning to till.

Tilling the Garden

On Thursday evening the plan was to hook up the auger bit onto the tractor and start drilling the holes for the raised bed posts. After fighting the arm connections on our "donated" auger bit (donated to us by one of my relatives that does not use a tractor anymore), we gave up until said relative could come over the next day to show us how to install it. So in order to not lose time while we still had light, Hubby put the new tiller attachment on and tilled up the garden area of the plot. And I have to tell you, that tiller turned over that red clay into what felt like light and fluffy whipped soil. Niceeeeeeee!







JUST LIKE BUTTER!

Staking the Plot by Sunset

Weekday nights can be challenging for us to get to the farm after work and actually get something done. Monday and Tuesday were a bust since we both had to work late.

On Wednesday night, we laid out our plan using stakes and string by the sunset light... Marking where the perimeter fence would go, the location of the raised beds, where the garden rows would be plus our future muscadine lines. And then we carried the heavy wood raised beds out into the plot. We carefully set them into their exact locations for digging the holes later in the week.



Rain is forecasted for the weekend so we would have to do some serious work between Thursday and Friday. Have to order a load of topsoil first though.

Constructing the Raised Beds

Sunday was a much more productive day for us on the farm. After a quick trip to the hardware depot for some materials, Hubby got to work constructing our raised bed planters.



And I have to tell you that he has some seriously mad carpentry skills! Who knew????!







All the while the master carpenter is doing his thing, I was outside at my newly located stainless work table potting all of the new veggie plants we had purchased so far. Once the raised beds are in place, filled with top soil and ready for planting, we will transfer these from the pots to the beds. So far we are planting tomatoes, jalapenos, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, cabbage, strawberries, sweet potatoes, rosemary and cilantro.









And then there were three! Three beautiful heavy duty raised bed planters ready to go set in the plot... but, we will save that for another day. (When the soil is drier!)

Rain Delay

Saturday was a bust for us with all of the rainfall we had over the course of last week. We got over four inches on Saturday alone. So what do farmers do when it's raining? We headed to the metropolis of Columbus to pick up our new tiller attachment that came in earlier in the week!



I am sure the folks at the Deere dealership were not too excited about having go out in the pouring rain to load her up...but, we drove a long way to pick it up! Hopefully, we have everything we need now to keep us going on the farm!

Bee-ing Mesmerized

Sometimes Hubby can do this for hours on end... (Okay - minutes on end but hours just sounds better!) Watching the bees... flying in and out of the boxes... fighting over who can get in first... in and out... Very mesmerizing evidently.



And now switching points of view... again, just standing there...watching... bees in and out.... Relaxing maybe?

Planting the Fruit

After prepping the dirt last weekend, we had a very successful planting of all the new fruit bushes and trees we had on hand. First, we laid out the twelve blueberry bushes (3 different types) on five foot centers.



As you can see we ran them in one long row along the lower end of the plot. This is the lowest plane where rain will run off to.



And then Hubby starting digging and followed with planting them one by one using a topsoil/cow manure/mushroom compost mix. He had lots of help from Rowdy-girl. She loves the freshly dug earth.



And I carefully set the plants at exactly twelve inches off the plumb line. You know us engineering type geeks just have to be exact!



Rowdy-girl really loves to help everyone on the farm!



Next up we planted the two Fuji apple trees.... they are already blooming and since their roots really love moisture, we planted them along the same plane on the lower end of the plot by the blueberries.





And finally as it was getting much later into the evening we planted the two Santa Rosa plum trees! We decided to plant them on the higher side of the plot.





With all the rain forecasted for this coming weekend and the fact that we have everything planted so far, we will be plant shopping!