On the farm, we have four vegetable beds that have been planted. We have some purple, some yellow, and some white potatoes. In the same bed as the potatoes, there is Swiss chard and many different types of tomatoes. In another bed, we have garlic and broccoli. The garlic is doing very well. The broccoli is growing but we are afraid that it is too hot for it. It is April and it is already 80 degrees F in the afternoon. We are also trying out some peanuts to see if we can grow them in the north Georgia mountains. They are doing fair. We aren’t counting on peanut butter sandwiches just yet. In the last bed, we have bell peppers, luffa gourds, snow peas, and cabbages. The luffa gourds and snow peas are on arbors. The arbors are built out of livestock panels. There is also a square of bell peppers and two rows of cabbages.
We also have lots of plants that are on our seed rack waiting to be planted. In the vegetable department, we have Mortgage Lifter tomatoes, Henderson’s Pink Ponderosa tomatoes, Brandywine tomatoes, Better Boy tomatoes, Corno Di Rosso peppers, a lot of other peppers, and sweet Annie (herb). More about sweet Annie later. In the flower department, we have Mammoth sunflowers, Echinacea coneflowers, Thumbelina mix zinnias, and Cut and Come Again mix zinnias.
In the berry and fig department, we have 6 blueberries, 6 raspberries, 50 strawberries,and 3 Brown Turkey figs that are in the ground and coming along nicely. We have 3 Niagara grapes, 3 Catawba grapes, and 20 small blueberry plants from a local blueberry farmer that need planting. Still more holes to dig.
Also, we have started an orchard, where we planted our orchard there used to be an old shed. We tore down the shed because it was right up against the road and made it hard to get to the barn. Therefore, we call it Old Shed Orchard. In total, we have 14 trees in our orchard. We have 3 Belle of Georgia semi-dwarf peach trees, a Secal pear tree, a Bartlett pear tree, and a Keifer pear tree. I know that the poor Kiefer pear is happy to be in the ground. We bought the tree for another farm we were going to buy, but when we didn’t close on the other farm, the kefir pear was set in the driveway. We even brought it in the house to protect it from a late frost. Now it has reached its permanent home in the Old Shed Orchard. We also have a whole heap of apple trees. We have a Fuji, a Honeycrisp, a Baldwin, a Sheepsnose, a Ben-Davis, and a horse apple. On the other side of the house, we have three Elliott pecan trees because Grand really misses having pecan trees.
Before (when we bought the farm)
After (about six months later)
