Garden

I have a very lovely garden, all of which I started from seed including my non-GMO organic heirloom tomatoes and peppers! I babied these things since day one many many months ago. My chickens think the garden is an excellent buffet...until, that is, I forbade them from going in. I wish I had chickens that heeded my warnings but since I don't, a fence was necessary. Darn chickens, it's always something! 

far fence is the western property line.

   

Two of the 4 sides were already fenced in cattle panels. There was old field fencing behind is so we had to take down the panels, remove the old field fencing and put the panels back up but now I have lots of nice field fencing to make tomato cages out of and re-purpose in other ways.

We installed 2 walk through gates (as seen in the photo above) which are nothing more than a sections of panels left over from other projects. One of the 16' panels stood up well enough without a center post. We left it so if we ever need to get the tractor in there, we can just unhook  some wires and drive it right in. Oh, did I saw tractor? Didn't know we had a tractor? Well, stay tuned!!!

 We lined the whole area with chicken wire so the baby chicks can't get in and so far, so good! No chickens in the garden. We had talked about fencing in the chickens but we kinda like the fact they are free range! It really cuts down on the feed bill and they are eating directly from nature!

It's really in a fabulous location with the trees on the western side (minus the hill which presents a bit of a watering issue when it's windy from time to time) . When the temperature is at its hottest, the western tree line shades the garden from the sweltering sun. It gets sun from about 7:30 AM to about 3 PM. I cannot tell you how nice it is to be working in the garden at 6:30 in the morning watching the sun rise over the eastern (treed) property line. All the sunflowers have their heads turned to the east anxiously awaiting the sun's morning kiss.

I guess maybe it looks kinda sparse in photos. It's actually pretty jam packed. Much of the corn is still quite small as are some of the bean plants. The chickens dug a lot of my seeds and small plants up so much of it had to be replanted. We put an end to that! 

Garden goodies: 

Tomatoes- Marmalade, Graham's Good Keeper, Evergreen, Amish Paste, Rainbow, & Brandywine

Beans: Pole and bush, Mexican Red (I believe) & Purple

Corn: Sweet, Indian and "Early"

Peppers: I'm not sure which ones survived the rolly polly attacks! I started out with at least 12, I have 4 that survived

Onions: Green, red and scallions

Potatoes: Russet and red

Sunflowers: Mammoth, black oil, assortment

Melons: Sugar baby watermelons, and a variety of canteloupe

Cuckes: Variety pack

Squash: Patty pan, yellow & zukes

 

I did not get peas in in time or cauliflower, etc., but now that there is a dedicated spot for the garden that is fenced, I can be better about getting seasonal stuff in. I know I talked about putting up a green house but that obviously has been put off this year. Maybe by next spring =). I know my plants aren't nearly as big as others, I did plant a bit later. I envy large squash and tomato bushes when I visit other people's houses but truth be told I was kind of experimenting with growing tomatoes from seed outside of a green house anyway. I don't have the room in my house to put plants so the shop was where it all happened and it wasn't exactly as warm in there as it should have been but it was fine, they just took a bit longer =).