Staking the Pole Beans & Work Shop Construction - Part 1

Thursday was another glorious day off from work for us at Wilsons Farms. Hubby decided to spend the day painting his workshop area in the barn. This took most of the day...



As you can see, he had some great support/help along the way!



Later in the evening after we ate supper and temperature dropped a few degrees, we started setting the posts and wiring for staking our pole beans. We used some leftover T-posts that we had from when we had some barbed-wire fencing installed several years ago. We worked until it was so dark, we could not see the garden anymore!









Final shots of the completed workshop paint job!

Mary, How Does Your Garden Grow?

We arrived home last evening from our short trip to the Georgia coast to find that our garden had grown so much in just 3-4 days!! So excited that the pumpkins are coming out of the ground now.



The squash and zucchini are 3 times big than they were before we left!



And would you look how big the two cabbages are getting in the raised beds? MUCH bigger than the others planted in the garden... Hmmmmm (Of course, if they make it through the heat of the summer then it will be a miracle!)



The peas are looking great too!



We are looking forward to the next few days off to work on the farm this week.

Tomatoes!

Looks like the cherry tomatoes are already producing even though they are only a foot or so high. We will need to set up a staking/rack system for them soon once they starting "running".

Plum Crazy!

Shortly after we planted our Santa Rosa plum trees a few weeks ago we noticed that their leaves started quickly turning yellow and falling off the limbs. Not sure why or really what to do to stop it, we decided to take action and dig them up.

Hubby then replanted them into large pots with potting soil and manure. Fingers crossed this works!!

Redneck Ingenuity At Its Best

What a beautiful Saturday to work on the farm!

Hubby started the day off tilling along the edge of the other front plot to plant/rake in 5 lbs. of behia grass seed.



At the same time, I planted most of the okra seeds that I had soaked overnight. I planted these where the watermelons used to be plus filled in some other gaps in the middle of the garden.



Next, I re-planted the watermelons near the far end just past the garden rows.



Here is a great view of the corn and beans coming up!



Next up, we used some redneck ingenuity and constructed some "scarecrows" using some of my Grandmother's old metal pie pans. How noisy are the pans clanging together in the wind!













Hopefully, the shiny plates whipping in the wind will deter the birds and the clanging noise will shoo the deer!!

Happy Happy Happy Saturday Morning!

Transplanting and Planting.

Last evening was spent with Hubby cutting the large front 3 acres of grass and myself bush-hogging the high perimeter weeds or "roughage" as I like to call it. This takes about 3 hours to do with one of us on a zero-turn mower and the other on the tractor pulling the bush-hog attachment. We finished up just as it was turning dark.



Before I got to bush hogging though I did a few things in the garden. One task was to pull up all 8 of the watermelon plants... we found out earlier in the week that we should not have planted them in the middle of the garden since they run all of the ground and will choke up all the other veggies. So I am transplanting them to a separate place on the plot in a corner so they can run.



I also planted some pecan tree seedlings someone at work gave me in a couple of pots. Again, just experimenting to see what happens.



And then after we made it home after dark, I put my okra seeds in water to soak before planting them the next morning. Why? Because that is what every farmer I have talked to has told me do!

Not a Salad Buffet!

I have not written about my fear of my beautiful garden getting bulldozed to shreds by the wildlife. But, if you ask me about my garden I will talk non-stop about it. Yes, in the country (especially way back in the woods) the wildlife tend to think of a man-made garden as their salad buffet. I watched my Grandfather spend hours and hours each year trying to ward off the birds, deer, varmints, etc. from our food supply commonly known as the garden. He would create and build a homemade electric fence every year. He would string up bars of Ivory and Dial soap and hang them from the tree limbs along the perimeter. He would string up metal pie pans and hang those from the perimeter tree limbs. He would even go so far to have my Grandmother bring home the hair clippings from the beauty shop each day so he could spread it out along the perimeter of the garden. Well, we definitely do not want to feed the wildlife from our buffet so I have been calling on two different fence installers trying to get pricing from them for a permanent 6 or 8 ft. high farm fence. This exercise has far exceeded my patience supply so I am at a loss at this point. What we do know is that both installers are booked up for at least 4-5 weeks so no matter what, I have to do something at least temporarily to get us over the hump to a permanent fence. So I made another call and trip to the local feed store and looked into a product they are selling to the other local farmers in town... And I purchased. And then we installed it around the perimeter of our food supply this evening.



It is a very simple installation. First, I help Hubby cut long 3+ ft long stakes out of scrap 2x4's and then we hammered then all along the perimeter of the garden. Next, we string up the ribbon that comes in the kit about 3 feet off the ground.



Then, you mix up the concentrated liquid deterrent that comes in the kit with water and spray onto the ribbon all along its sides all the way around the perimeter.



And voila, you have your wildlife prevention fence! Let's just hope it works.



And finally, I put out my 12-14 bars of Irish Spring soap bars around the edges of the raised beds. This will hopefully keep the birds out.



It's hard to tell from the picture since it's so grainy, but we left tonight in the moon light... Very pretty!

Maintaining the Goods

We were finally able to walk into/around the garden last night since all the rain over the weekend. Before I could even get to the raised beds Hubby had already picked the ripe strawberries! We split the first four deliciously sweet berries - Super yum!



After my inspection of the garden including my daily hunt for wildlife tracks, I planted all of the pumpkin seeds I purchased last weekend - 3 different types. There is a farm a few miles up the highway that plants acres and acres of pumpkins every year... so why not experiment and see what we can grow too?

I had also purchased okra seeds to plant in the last open row of the garden, but I ran out of time since we had to go take care of some things with the honey bees. As you can see up close, my peas are getting bigger every day!!!



The last hour of the evening was spent suiting up and adding new supers/boxes to two of our three hives. This will allow the bees more room to make their honey.

Good Morning!

Rain Is A Good Thing

Quick check on the garden Monday afternoon while meeting a fence installer to discuss our perimeter fence options around the plot. We got another two inches of rain on Sunday and from the looks of my three rows of peas, they are happy, happy, happy! (See the staked rows in the photo) Way too muddy to do anything... but, I did score some pumpkin seeds over the weekend and okra seeds at the local feed store yesterday. Just hope I can get them in the ground the next couple of days!

Rain = Sprouts!

This Saturday morning we woke early to the sounds of rain and thunder. That's good news because the garden is getting some much needed rain water! That's no so good in that we will not get much done today on the farm. So as the rain kept up for most of the morning, we took a drive into town (LaGrange) to run some errands. By mid-afternoon the rain had stopped and we decided to head on over to take care of some stuff in the barn.

And when we made the drive around the garden heading in, guess what we saw? So many shoots or sprouts of peas and corn!!! Long rows of green sprouts of each! And a few of the pole beans = So excited!!!





I was ecstatic! After only a week in the grounds from seeds came the sprouts... Thank you Mother Nature for your wonderful rain today! Amen.

A Day of Firsts

Saw a glimmer of red today in the strawberry patch growing in raised bed # 1... Of course, they really should have been planted earlier in the season and have not been in the ground but a few days. But, we'll take 'em!!



Looks like some of their friends will be joining us soon too...

Bravo For the Bees!

On Tuesday evening while the sprinklers watered the garden, we had planned to check up on our honey bees since it has been almost two weeks since Hubby last opened their boxes. The good news is that the bee gear Hubby ordered for me had arrived in the mail last week...The bad news is that I had to dress out in the bee gear to help him. (Again, I really am only a beekeeper's wife...not a beekeeper!) It was my job to puff the smoke on the bees to "relax" them while Hubby opened their hives and checked out their handywork. Sounds easy enough, huh?



Do you see that I only have the head gear piece and the long gloves? I thought I asked for the full suit. Hmmmmmmmm

Our bee hives are named in the order they arrived... Alpha Company and Bravo Company for the first two from Griffin, GA and then Charlie Company for the third one from Columbus, GA.







Alpha and Charlie were doing okay... but, Bravo was kicking butt in their work so we added a new section for them to spread out.

Sprinkling

Monday night was spent enjoying the view of our garden by the sunset light... while Hubby hooked up more hoses and connections for his uber-super-yet-probably-over-engineered sprinkler system.





I on the other spent some quality time just chatting up a pep talk with my plants... they are sensitive ya know!