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Wednesday, March 29, 2017

RAISED BED GARDEN PLANTING FINISHED

So this past weekend, both Saturday and Sunday, was time to get the garden more or less, finished (and the flowerbeds I posted about yesterday).

It was an odd day on Saturday because there was a man, considered armed and dangerous, on the loose in the area.  He had fled the scene of a fatality accident and was on the run since it was a rural area (lots of land to hide on and homes/buildings to hide in).  Once the police officer came to tell 2nd Family, they came up and told me to be on the lookout and as I worked in the garden the rest of the day, I had our gun nearby just in case. I would work on things for 3 minutes and then look up and around.  Then another couple of minutes and look around again.  It was too distracting.  The decision was made not to spend the night because that would have made for a REALLY sleepless night.

Luckily he was captured without incident early in the evening.

So back on track with the gardening...


First up was to get some cucumbers in the ground.  We have never tried them and had an empty bed just waiting.  I pulled back the cover, turned the soil and put the trellis up.  We bought pickling cucumbers as neither of us is a big fan of just cucumbers but we love pickles and since the canning bug has bitten me, I figured it was time to try some pickles.  

Assuming these grow and produce of course, ha.  


I put down the straw around the plants and set up the trellis, which matches the red supports elsewhere in the garden.  This type is supposed to let the vines climb up the outside and the cukes will dangle through the other side.  We'll see if that works like its supposed to, ha.  


Here's the garlic bed.  They are doing great and I guess we have another couple of months before harvesting (end of May).  
Can't wait for that!  Fingers crossed!


In the larger bed, we deiced to try some seeds.  Planted two types of carrots, as well as a section of beets and a section of turnips.   These are all varieties best suited for our climate.  Hoping to see some green sprouts this weekend.

Time will tell!


Also planted a yellow squash and a zucchini.  This was before I got the irrigation set up in this bed.  This weekend I will add some root vegetable seeds to this bed to have some staggered plantings while the squash are still small.  


This was originally going to be Spring greens and then okra, but we missed Spring greens season.  I think we have gone right on to Summer, ha.  We decided to go ahead and plant the okra now.


Here it is in the middle of Winter, just before I got started...


...and here is it this past weekend.  

Let the growing begin!

17 comments:

  1. Awesome! You have done really an amazing job in getting and planting of your veggie beds and of course your flowerbeds as well.
    Looks like you will have a great pumper crop of everything.
    Just hope you don't receive no damaging hail.
    Looking at your area; just think, No more mowing around your raised beds.

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    1. Survived the storms that went through fairly well but did receive 1 inch of rain within a half hour. Others, not so lucky. Had some wind and hard rain.
      Was a quick pass through storm but hardly any sleep. It started here around 2AM and by 2:30 it was pretty well over.
      Several schools in Arlington didn't have school yesterday due to power outages. Two sections of I-20 was closed due to down power lines laying across the interstate.

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    2. Thank you for that. I hope we have a bumper crop too, fingers crossed. No hail, we survived the storms, though Houston had 4 tornadoes touch down (just confirmed today). One was heading toward my office...we were just about to get into the stairwell, but it kept moving East instead of NE. Scary.

      We had 1 1/4" at the farm according to 2nd Family. Nice for the newly planted flowers and veggies!

      Glad y'all are safe!

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  2. I am impressed with your garden! I have to get my tail out in the yard and get everything ready our planting. I sow green bean seeds on Good Friday (No idea why, but it is what my grandmother always did so I try to be a good little monkey and obey the rules) and do the okra the same day. I am once and for all giving up on tomatoes (except cherry tomatoes). The only thing I get from them is very satisfied chipmunks.

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    1. Thank you. Hey, grandmas often knew best! Chipmunks? We don't have them here, we do have squirrels, though I've rarely seen them at the farm. Birds are a problem with the tomatoes but last year we had some luck with bird netting over the top of the tomato towers.

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  3. Since, in my opinion, squash and zucchini left to get too large are not good for eating, how are you going to pick things when you are only there on the weekends? You certainly have a nice variety. Chickens would complete the farm!

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    1. Oh we want chickens so bad, but that will have to wait until we live there. Don't think we can do once a week chickens, ha. As for the veggies, 2nd Family always has harvest rights when we are't there. Quite often they harvest and give most back to us when we come (plus they throw in a dozen fresh eggs from their chickens, ha).

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  4. Looks great. You are going to need more than two duke plants to have enough to pickle. But what? Guess who had a recipe for dill pickles published in a Smith and Hawkin cookbook? You are in luck.

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    1. Wait, what? Really? Cool!!! Yeah, the cukes are an experiment for this season, we'll see how they grow and if we want to do more next Spring (or maybe late Summer/early Fall)

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  5. Look at you go! I wish you a bounteous harvest. I'm glad the armed and dangerous man was caught. Having him running about would make me nervous.

    Love,
    Janie

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    1. Thank you very much!!! Yes, the guy on the run thing was a bit unnerving.

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  6. Good choice of trellis! You just skipped 3 years of the learning curve of growing cukes!

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    1. Well that sounds good! I can't wait to see how well it works!!! Thank you!!

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  7. Very unsettling having that armed fugitive running around your area - I’m glad that it was resolved so you had a more peaceful Sunday.

    I really like your cucumber frame - looks like it’s going to work out great. Everything looks so healthy and ready to take off growing. The rain we had last night/this morning will help with that. My garden loved the 1.5 inches we received.

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    1. I know, it kind of ruins the "rural country relaxing weekend", ha. Hope you fared well in these latest round of storms.

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  8. All looks good so far. Don't look for the carrots real soon. they take a long time to germinate. Some people plant radishes with carrots since they germinate fast.

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    1. Yeah, I was just looking on the packets, I will have to mark that on the calendar, ha. Thanks for the advice, I will have to check about radishes, thanks!!!

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