Just a quick update on how our garden is progressing. It has grown a lot since my last post about four weeks ago!
But every day I lose another plant to my chickens, goats, or the dog. It is the most frustrating thing in the world to find your beautiful garden either dug up or munched on. I cannot stress the importance of a good fence, ie: not chicken wire!
Here are some tomatoes. Most of them are Amish Paste tomatoes, though there is a Yellow Marble tomato plant in there too. See how nicely the chickens have dug up the corner of the bed. There was a plant there:
Here are some Brandywine Tomatoes:
Here is the Paris White Cos leaf lettuce coming up.
And here are some Scarlet Nantes carrots:
The yellow squash bed is blooming. I think it’s interesting that the two biggest, greenest plants in the bed are the ones I watered with a compost tea, just as an experiment. Guess it worked!
Here are the bush green beans. The chickens will NOT leave them alone! I also had more lettuce planted between the beans, but the hens have destroyed them all:
The strawberry bed:
So far I’ve gathered 48 berries, though they’ve all been very small. These are Sparkle strawberries, which are smaller and good for making jams. I’m kind of wishing I’d planted a larger variety, as the berries we’ve gathered were hardly even large enough to taste.
Maybe they’ll get bigger as the plants mature, but I’ll probably order another variety next season. It will take forever before we get enough berries to have a canning session!
Spring onion bed. I’ve also interplanted cabbage:
Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage. We’ll see if it lives.
Potato bed. I totally thought these guys were a lost cause. But they’ve surprised me! I finally have some shoots growing up:
Two Pumpkin mounds:
These are pie pumpkins:
Here’s my row of watermelons. I probably planted too many. But then again, who can have too many watermelons:
These are Moon & Stars Watermelons:
And a row of Cantaloupes:
These are Hales Best Jumbo Cantaloupes:
I also put a few peppers in the ground. Green peppers, and Pimientos. I think the chickens have killed all but one of them. Ugh:
And the corn patch:
We planted Golden Bantam corn. I still plan on planting some pole green beans to climb up the corn stalks once they get a little more established:
Oh yeah, and don’t forget the cucumbers in the front yard. These are Marketmore cucumbers:
Well, everything is looking way better than last year! Crossing my fingers 🙂
A city girl learning to homestead on an acre of land in the country. Wife and homeschooling mother of four. Enjoying life, and everything that has to do with self sufficient living.
An idea to save your garden if you are not fencing, I am trying it this year for first time. I have read…in Backhome Woods magazine that if you (this sounds gross) sprinkle your kids hair after hair cuts or urine around your garden rabbits will stay away. LOL I have two little boys that are very willing to “pee” here or there for me. tee hee. I will let you know if it holds back the bunnies that are all over my yard.
Debbie,
My little man would love that idea! We do have a fence around the garden, so rabbits haven’t been a problem. Plus, our dog is good about keeping them away 🙂 It would be interesting to know if it works though!
bad chickens!! ha ha. if i start to get frustrated with my animals i always remind myself, “he’s just dogging about”. in your case, “she’s just chickening”. WONDERFUL garden and what a great experiment to see what will work and not work. looks like you’re off to a great start. a lot of work, but great joy, i’m sure. if you organic garden, maybe post some tips on how you do it? (or maybe it’s there… i’m new to your site). happy gardening and God bless!
sylvia
Oh I’m so jealous! We aren’t really able to start ours yet because of the frost date but we do have onions in! Suggestion for your tomatoes- to get bigger and more juicy tomatoes sprinkle some Epsom salts around the base of each plant. I do this every year and they turn out wonderfully and we get huge tomatoes every single year!! Tomatoes thrive off the magnesium in the salts! And for the carrots to have longer better carrots, along each side of the rows a couple of inches away put a row of sand. Not sure why, but an old time farmer said to do this and we have every year and our carrots are so much better! I think it has something to do with water. Let me know your secret to cukes…we never have much luck with those! I’m so sorry you are having issues with your animals! I would be so livid! I get mad when bunnies attack my beans let alone the troubles you are having! I know I have a motion censored owl in my garden and that helps with the animals. Good luck!!!
Your garden looks good but I can’t help but feel bad for you that your animals are destroying your food. I know your trying to have a more sustainable lifestyle, is there any plans in the future to fence off your planting area?
Our first year here I put in a full garden, the corn came up so beautifully, it was so full and just about the time it was ready to be picked the squirrels climbed the stalks, peeled the husks back and had a feast, they didn’t even take the corn off the stalk, they just ate it and left the empty cobs still attatched. What the squirrels didn’t eat the deer and the rabbits did, the whole garden was practically a flop. I told my dh that the next year I was getting food out of that garden one way or another, when he asked me what I was thinking I said well it will either veggies or meat but I am going to get SOMETHING out of that garden, I was so mad at the time that I could have bit nails in two, now we an electric fence, sadly we are no where near ready to be power company free but at least dinner is safe, lol
Whatever way you decide to go with your garden I hope your able to somehow keep the animals out so that you can harvest and preserve your bounty!!
Dana
WOW!!! WOW WOW WOW!! I’m so excited for you! It is all coming along nicely! =) That is so frustrating about the chickens/dog!!! =(
Guess what…mine still aren’t in the GROUND!!! Yep. So frustrating…so they are still really small and pewney. =( I’m thinking we are going to need even more dirt…after all the waiting to get the ground tilled, it is COMPLETELY full of rocks…I’ve spent way too much time trying to get them out and finally just spent money on dirt…doesn’t that kill you to spend money on *DIRT*! Yet, after me hauling and moving a full ton of dirt, I still need more…sigh.
Atleast it comforts me to know that it is probably too wet and cold still…it was hailing pretty good yesterday, so that could have ruined a bunch.
God has a plan…even for my little tomatoes! =)
So excited for all the hard work you have done…it is all looking so spectacular! Can’t wait to see how it comes along in the next month!
Blessings