Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Garden














MULCH MULCH MULCH IN THE GARDEN =)

Feeling very inspired by watching " Back to Eden " -
a 1hr40 free gardening video seen by clicking on the link.
((Edit - woops here is the direct link, although the other link was cool too )) ..  Back to Eden Film.
It talks about irrigation + fuss free gardening by using what's all around you, including common sense. Mulching heavy with pinestraw, spent hay, winter's leftover leaves, bark, and wood chips. We are excited about this, oh ho ho. Our back garden bed is growing potatoes and a few tomatoes and peppers. We are also going to put in some Watermelons to run down the ditches back there. That bed was dug last year, but the big garden bed at the front has probably never ( in the last 50 years) been worked for growing. It is heavy on the clay and full of rocks and we are working on things. It will improve. For now, it is growing corn and sunflowers - scattered rows thanks to the local fat greedy birds. Also carrots. Also a row or two of cotton, both green and white. The Wildwood Pumpkin has taken off ! It and my three winter squash and 2 Tennessee Melons are all looking promising with tendrills twirling and flower blossoms rising up. Oh, the garden. 
Note to self = sow those tomato and pepper seeds earlier next year.. ..

We also have a big heavy nonchalant deer who meanders in a I don't care kind of a fashion quite regularly. I do believe he did said wandering some wee hours into the night once this week and bit off half of a large stalk of my Blue Corn. Watch it daddy deer - I like you in Winter's stew :)

The pesky ants have been a problem in our potato beds. We did the grits scattering trick last week and did notice they were carrying the grit pieces back to their little nests. We are not sure if the "explosion" part worked, as it was an underground activity and probably not something a human would hear or anything. Johnny was reluctant to believe that cornmeal or grits would cause an ant to explode. I'm not so sure about it myself, but I am sure that pouring hot scolding water on them would not be in the best interest of the potato plant they seem to have befriended. 

I tried to grow all of my food plants by seed this year, I like to buy organic and non- treated and GMO and Hybrid Free and all that. I am so suspecting when I go into the Home Depot and see their corn seed packs and the Tomato Plants. My tomato seedlings, are quite terrible looking at still one or two inches compared to store ones , I am not so sure that I will get the first tomatoe off them this year. Slow buggars ! I have such high hopes of lots of preserving this year. 

It is nearly dark on a cloudy rain free day. It just may rain late tonite , and I hope it does. 
Do ants hold their breath when it rains? Do they somehow stop up their little ant holes ? 

x

2 comments:

  1. Ahhh. What a wonderful garden. I can tell you've worked hard. We had heavy clay soil when we moved into our place, and just kept piling on the compost and mulch. You're off to a wonderful start. I'm hoping to start using all seeds next year. We bought a tiny greenhouse kit, 6' x 8' so that we can try growing our own plants rather than buying every year. Blessings on your growing season. Everything looks beautiful. xx Jodi (Ruby)

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    1. Thank you dear Jodi for the blessings - I hope your garden grows well too .x

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