June 13, 2017 Garden Update.

The inside of the greenhouse is where the bulk
of the tomatoes and peppers are planted.
All of the heat loving tomatillos are in there

View from the north east corner.
These are corn rows.
In the foreground we have marigolds and nasturtiums.
These are natural bug barriers.

Our first market garden nearly completed. The work was mostly heavy but no part of it was very large. But the garden is in and growing. Though not everything has gone according to the design.

We had a plan that so well considered that the entire thing had to be scrapped in favor of doing what was available to do. The Farm has it's own schedule and nothing you or I might do will change the weather. So things are placed where they made the most sense at the time. And there was also much to learn and little time to learn it.

Mistakes were made. (S'all I'm sayin'.) 

These hills are Patti-pan and Butternut Squash .
Potatoes fill the rows in the upper left corner.

 This past weekend there was a Spring rain storm, about a half an inch or more of rain. This was just the thing we needed. Seeds sprouted and everything got watered in deeply.  The dust and pollen settled too, so our  allergies took a break as well. The weather cycle is off and on hot, so the early growth is a bit slow. Once the heat comes on fully growth will be much better. Despite the unhelpful cool temperatures we are doing well. It has been something of a fight with the local wildlife that has slowed us more than anything else.

Finding a solution for watering is
still more experiment than anything else.

A few weeks ago the world noticed our little garden and sent moles, gophers, and a rabbit or two into the garden and the fight was on. We didn't really want to kill the little creatures, just encourage them to leave peacefully. 

The first thing I tried was a daily collapsing of their tunnels, but this did nearly nothing. I tried drowning their burrows, they just laughed at me. We got tough with the gophers and bought some smoke bombs, this was no help at all.  Eventually we found some electronic ground stakes which, over time, has nearly done part of the job. I also learned how to properly collapse tunnels and flood burrows. The fight is a good one, they are not going quietly.

We have three rototillers.
The smallest one makes good rows .

We haven't seen two Strawberries yet, but we did get one and it was delicious. 

My Mother worried that we had too many plants, but the idea is to have thousands and we merely have hundreds right now. These hundreds of plants were transplanted four times this year as we moved front city to Farm, and had little time. So it's little wonder that we haven't had fruit yet. But we are hopeful that we might do better next year. For now we will be happy to find more plants next year. The fruit thing will figure itself out.

This view shows our lettuces and basil between'
strawberries to the left and cucumbers to the right.