Hey everyone, how does your garden grow?  My seed starting station was a great success.  In fact too much so.  I didn't monitor it too well and after a week I decided that maybe a few seeds may have sprouted.  Yeah, the tomatoes looked like bean sprouts and hit the plastic top, curled over, and had grown half way back to the seed pellet.  The bell peppers were just about touching the plastic top.  I decided to just pull out the white stemmed spindly tomatoes and restart them.  The bell peppers were good and look great.  After four days the tomato seeds have popped up and are well on the way to producing tomato plants.  They may be just a little small when I plant them around May 15th but that just means I'll have tomatoes later in the season.  I'll probably buy a six pack or two just to have some earlier tomatoes.  The lesson learned is to monitor those seed starts every day.  The weather has been so nice that I don't even use the grow lights but just set them out side during the day to get the real thing sunshine.  It looks like I have four nice and sturdy Rutgers volunteer tomato plants already growing in the garden.  I'll let them get a little bigger and transplant them to their proper spot for this year.

Here's the plan for the bottom of the fence.  The last 30 feet of fencing will be cut into strips two foot wide and thirty feet long.  They will be attached to the bottom of the existing fence which then will be tacked to the wood that will be in a shallow trench.  Hopefully this will deter any digging critter from digging under the fence.  If that don't work then I do have a plan "B".  Plan "B" is to lay a two foot strip of chicken wire horizontally down in front of the wood and pin it to the ground with the big staple looking pins and cover it up with dirt.  The idea is that if a digging critter decided to dig, their claws will catch in the wire and keep them from digging.  That has been put on hold until the inside of the fence garden is finished.  I don't think any thing is going to eat the tomatoes, cucumbers, or bell peppers.

You can and see the weeds are coming back with a vengeance.  Sadly I had to resort to chemical measures to contain the weed population.  I really wanted to deep mulch them with broken bales of hay but I'm having a difficult time getting permission to haul the old hay away.  The property that they are sitting on is owned by a limited liability corporation.  I think a few folks got together and formed this corporation to buy investment property.  The real estate company gave me a number to call. The fellow that answered had no idea what I was talked about.  The address that I found from public records for the company was a house for sale.  My only recourse is to keep a watchful eye on the property and wait for the farmer that grows crops on the 25 acres to show up so I can ask him if I can haul it away for mulch.  However, as you can see weeds wait for no one.  The plan is to only do the chemical control once and not on my inside the fence garden.
 

Here's my lovely free daylilies.  Yeah, they just happen to be right smack dab in the middle of my gate.  Aren't they really healthy and looking strong.  I decided that I'm not so much in love with daylilies any more.  My original plan was to transplant them along the outside of the fence.  Aaaaa, well, I can do that later if I really want.  I discovered they are a little tougher to transplant than I thought.  It looked a lot easier in mind.  So they have to go.  I have several other patches about this same size on the property so there is not going to be a lack of this resource if I decide to get crazy and use them for border plants.  Although, I would like to see a rabbit try to dig through those tangled roots.

OK, nothing but a pile of compost to be hauled away.  The good old pick axe and I rooted them out of the dirt in short order.  Let's get on to the next step in the taming of Terra Nova Gardens.

Here's one path and two garden beds almost finished.  Now why on earth would anyone dig a trench in the garden.  Some years ago I read an article about building raised garden beds.  The article said that since the path would only be used for walking skim off the four inches of good top soil and put it on the garden bed.  Not that I really need to do that here since the top soil goes down at least 18 inches.  My idea is to get more height for the garden beds and then to fill up the trench with wood chips.  Maybe a tree service would be willing to donate a load or two of wood chips for my garden paths and parking area.  It would do wonders for looks and be nice to walk on.

Well, the flag is flying, the sun is shining, and the tools are ready.  So until next time, I'll be working in the garden.  I just may have to buy a camp stove coffee pot for working in the garden just to keep the coffee on.  It's just not the same out a thermos bottle.

Just a short post this time to update the progress at Terra Nova Gardens.  We are in a rain cycle here.  There was a torrential down pour this afternoon with the promise of more to come during the night time hours.  My main tank for gravity feed watering is full.  One rain put 300 gallons of water in the tank.  I suspect that the tank has a leak though because I lost about an inch a day without watering from the last rain.  We will see how much loss comes with a full tank.

My cousin gave me a water pump for a fountain so now that I have enough water in the tank, the pump can be set up and circulate the water to keep the algae down.  If I can plug the leak and keep the tank full the next step will be to catch some fish and put them in the tank.  Then the dangling bug zapper will provide some of the diet for the fish.

The progress at Terra Nova has halted for a spell with the rain.  It was a great week of work. 

Here's what it looks like now.  The rustic fence is finished for this year and the critter proof area fence posts have been set in the ground.  They are spaced eight feet apart with a 2X4 treated top rail.  I found that landscaping timbers made for the perfect fence posts.  They are treated, they are eight foot long, and best of all they are only $2 compared to much more for a regular eight foot post.  The fabric for the fence is good old chicken wire.  It's 48 inches high but has quite a space under certain sections of the fence due to the uneven ground.  Thirty feet of fencing will be cut in two foot strips and used to cover these sections that need to be covered.  That should bring the fence even with the ground. 

Remember the tree that was cut earlier this year?  I've decided to set the split wood chunks in a shallow trench around the bottom of the fence with staples holding the fence to the wood chunks from the inside of the fence.  If that don't discourage the digging critters then I'll have to go to plan "B".  What is plan "B"?  Ah, I don't know yet. 

Here's a little better view of the chicken wire critter proof fence.  Steel posts between the wooden post give the fence a little more sturdiness.  The posts were donated to the garden by a neighbor across the street.  He also gave me the mother of all post drivers, that he had made, to pound them into the ground.  The top plate looked like it was cut from inch thick boiler plate steel.  The handles were steel rod about an inch and a half thick and the tube for the post to fit into was at least a half inch thick.  The whole thing probably weighed at least 40 to 50 pounds.  When the post was hammered with this driver it would sink into the ground about six to eight inches.  Never did I have to whack the post more than a couple times.  It was a real man handler.  It made short work of pounding in the posts that's for sure.  As you can see the day lilies are doing quite well. I've found that it's not as easy to transplant them as I thought. I see you smiling. Old Bobcat Larry gave me a hand and carved out a road so I can park my truck off the road. The weeds are starting to perk up and will probably really take off after all the weekend rain.

After the fence fabric was installed and I was resting admiring my work, the wild turkeys came over to the property and starting checking out the fence line.  I told them that this was my part of the garden and that outside the fence was their part of the garden and sweet corn would be planted in their part of the garden.  They weren't too sure what to think about that.  Old Tom was strutting his stuff with tail fanned out but the ladies just weren't interested. Neighbors have told me that hatching season is in May so there just may be a bunch of little gobblers running around soon.

It's going to be back to work again this next week.  The weather is kicking up again this weekend.  I hope and pray that everyone avoided the bad stuff and only got the rain that brings gardens to life.

Have a great week in the garden.

It looks like we are in for another crazy year.  I've been gone for a week visiting family in Las Vegas.  The average temperatures there hovered around 60 degrees while back in Nebraska the thermometer soared above 90 degrees two days in a row.   While visiting family (oldest daughter and family), we made a trip to California to go to Universal Studios. The weather was worse there.  It was about 55 degrees with wind and misty rain.  We still had a great time but not very typical weather anywhere this year.  What's up with that?  

Here's the big guy on the midway leading into Universal Studios.  The tram ride which was not near this display brought us into a tunnel.  The 4D 360 degree visual stimulation was awesome.  King Kong fought with a dinosaur and as he leaped from one side of the tram to the other he walked down the top of the tram.  The tram rocked and bounced as he leaped off and tangled with the dinosaur.  Of course the big guy won the match.  Many other similar experiences happened during the day.  It was a great day even though the weather wasn't so nice.  The best part was just spending time with my daughter, her husband, and two granddaughters.

One day was spent fishing on the big lake (Lake Mead) at Las Vegas but it was a bust.  We didn't even get a nibble and eventually had to leave because of the wind factor.  The rest of the week was spent with my sister catching up with life stories.  It was a great week of vacation but it's always good to be home.  Don't you think?

I returned home to a yard that needed mowing and a garden that hadn't sprouted yet.  I planted carrots, radishes, lettuce, and swiss chard before leaving.  The tomato and green pepper seeds are now planted in the plugs and the heat mat is on.  In about 10 days we will see if things are progressing as expected. 

In the mean time the fence building continues and the daylilies are growing.  This is actually a picture from before I left on vacation.  The fence is now complete and the daylilies are much bigger.  Cindy I know you like Milkweed but I weed whacked them all down around the perimeter of the garden along with the nettle weeds.  Probably the smart thing for me to do would be to start a nettle tea business and let the nettles grow themselves but the farmer in me just won't let that happen.  I can already see that the wild grape vines are not going to give up easily.  They are sprouting up every where.  I'm hoping to mulch them to death with deep hay mulch.  I've been watch three huge bales of hay by the road that have been broken and sitting there for three years.  I am trying to get in touch with the owner of the property to see if I can haul them away.  That would really help to keep the weeds down.

Old Bobcat Larry continues to visit almost every day I'm at the garden.  He came over one day and helped me carve out a road into the property with his machine as he calls it.  Now I have a designated parking area for my truck.  Eventually, I will expand it to allow several parking spaces.  Yesterday was the first day at the garden since returning from vacation.  I found three T posts leaning against my garden gate to help with the actual garden fence construction.  I have an idea who left them but I don't know for sure.  Another neighbor has indicated she would be willing to trade chicken eggs for garden produce.  It's really great to see how he neighbors are responding to a crazy old coot who starting gardening in the most unsual place.

Most the neighbors stop and talk awhile when I'm there and have indicated they watch the property to keep unwanted people off.  I have devised a plan to let them know when I'm not there if the person has permission to be there.  I mounted a flag holder to the garden gate and fly the flag when I'm there.  If I'm not there and some one is there that is helping with the garden and I'm not with them I'll give them the flag to fly that way the neighborhood with know it's OK for them to be there. 

Here's an over all picture of Terra Nova Gardens as it looks at the end of March.  It's all coming together but has a long way to go yet. 

I'll have more soon but that's all for now.  I hope everyone is enjoying the spring weather.  Well, I hope it's nice where you are.

P.S. - Lori, I made three batches of the laundry soap.  I was just a little skeptical about only 1/8 cup of soap because, well, that's really not much for a load of wash.  I have a top loader and there's a lot of clothes for only 1/8 cup.  I washed a load of grays but, aaaah, couldn't really tell much because their gray.  The next load was whites which was the real test.  I always let them soak for a few hours and then run them through the complete wash cycle.  I don't think I've ever seen my whites this white before.  You have made a believer out of me.  However, while I was gone for a week, my daughter went through two batches of soap.  I know she washes a lot of clothes but I kind of think she's using just a little more than 1/8 cup.  I suppose there's a learning curve on using this soap.  She thought I was just a little off my rocker when I made soap.  She didn't say anything but I could see it in her eyes.  At 27 years of age her thought process is "that's what stores are for. To buy soap."  Thanks for the recipe.