Garden progress

Right now, with spring fully upon us, we have any number of projects yanking us in different directions. However we're focusing on one very big and very important project at the moment: The garden.

We installed about half the garden beds two summers ago, but nothing since then. And even those beds weren't fully planted. Why? Because we didn't have the garden fenced against deer. The things I did plant (such as strawberries) had to be heavily cloched with deer netting, and even then the deer learned they could press their faces against the netting until plants poked through, then eat down what they could. (This –  THIS! – is why we're planning on installing ten foot fences around the garden. Eight feet simply isn't enough. Not taking chances!)

This year is when we plan to complete the first phase of the garden. I saw "first phase" because we're giving ourselves the option of literally doubling the size of the garden at some future point, should the need arise. But for now, we plan to have 35 garden beds in four rows (three rows of nine beds, one row with eight beds, leaving a space to install some solar panels we purchase second-hand a few years ago, and which we hope will work to charge our Bluetti battery. More on that when the project happens.)

So, once the ground was firm enough to drive on, we got busy. The first thing we did was remove the cattle panels we had used to enclose the garden area against the cows for the last year. (The cows are currently in the sacrifice pasture.) These four-foot-high panels were ineffective against deer, but fine for keeping the cows out. Since we carved the long, narrow garden area out of a section of the pasture next to the house, protecting it against the cows was imperative.

While I worked on disassembling the fencing, Don opened the pasture gate and brought in the tractor with the rototiller attachment on the back. This way he could churn together the three elements we use to fill garden beds – dirt, compost, sand – and pile it up.

Then Don started weed-whacking the other half of the garden to knock down the vegetation.

While he worked on that, I pulled together a new roll of heavy-duty weed cloth. This is one of the many purchases we made over the last few years in anticipation of such projects, and now that we're on a strict budget, we're beyond grateful for the resources we bought ahead.

We rolled out the weed cloth the length of the garden.

This cloth comes doubled over, so we unfolded it once it was cut to length.

See the hose bibs sticking up? We installed those two years ago for the future drip irrigation system (they're placed to fit at the end of each garden bed). We had to fit the cloth over those.

To help with this, we pinned the edge of the cloth with metal stakes to hold things in place. 

Then we each took a pair of scissors and went down the row, feeling the hose bibs and making X-shaped cuts in the cloth to let the bibs poke through.

Here's the progress so far. We need to trench and lay irrigation hose on the right-hand side for the last row of garden beds, but that won't happen yet.

With that task completed, it was time to bring in gravel. This not only anchors the weed cloth, but it provides a drainage base for the garden beds. By the way, piles of gravel are yet another resource we purchased last year.

We kinda rolled the side of the weed cloth in while Don moved gravel so the cloth wouldn't get damaged by the tractor tires.

He spaced the gravel loads wide enough to make about a one-rock-thick layer once everything was spread out. Spreading gravel with a rake and shovel is exhausting. It also let us know where Don needed to add more gravel to fill in black spots.

After this, we carried in the nine garden beds Don had constructed last summer, and which have been stacked and waiting this whole time. We positioned these beds in front of each hose bib.

Because we've been having some issues with the beds bowing outward, Don installed a heavy-duty wire brace inside each bed.

He drilled a thin hole through each center rib and threaded the wire through, stapling it down. We've had no problems with beds actually breaking, but we figure this will relieve some of the outward pressure.

Then it was time to start filling the beds. Here's the first of the mounds of dirt/sand/compost Don churned up.

He scooped up a bucket at a time with the tractor, and brought it over to each empty bed. For obvious reasons, it's essential to fill the inner beds with soil before we put the last row of beds in place. (In other words, to fill the beds as we go.)

Once the beds were filled, we took a break from infrastructure so I could get some stuff planted. Some of the older garden beds had been cannibalized of their soil to top off other beds (soil tends to settle), so I needed to get those beds refilled. To do that, I cannibalized soil from the newer beds, since Don can top them off with the tractor later on.

Of our original 17 beds, four already had strawberries planted in them, and five had been planted with garlic last fall. Here is the garlic...

...and at the other end, four strawberry beds, cloched with deer netting until such time as we have the permanent perimeter fence installed.

This left eight beds, which I wanted to plant with potatoes.

Yesterday I pushed through and got everything done. I topped off the beds with dirt and raked them smooth. Then I pulled out some crates of potatoes harvested last fall which had been stored in our pantry. They were comically overgrown.

I planted three rows of seven potatoes – 21 potatoes – in each bed.

I laid them out first...

...before digging them in deeply.

The actual planting didn't take long; but by the end of the day, after all the toil of weeding the beds, topping them with dirt, then planting all the potatoes ... well, I was wiped.

But I managed to accomplish another task that was overdue: Planting seedlings.

I'd been meaning to do this for a couple weeks, and finally got around to it. I'm kinda late, but hey, it's been a busy spring. (Visiting my parents was more important.)

I planted 50 onion seeds, 34 paste tomatoes, 16 broccoli, 2 beefsteak tomatoes, and 16 sweet peppers.

The rest of the seeds can be direct-seeded once the beds are completed and the weather permits.

So that's our garden progress so far. Don is engaged in building the remaining beds for the final row. Once we have the area rocked in and the beds filled, we'll install the permanent perimeter fence and breath a sigh of relief that the deer won't be able to decimate anything we plant. Onward!