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Hi Everyone,
Up north the gardens are being tucked in for the winter, but here in the south our gardens are coming alive for fall, winter and spring are our biggest growing seasons. A few weeks ago we finally got the collards, kale, bok choy and other greens transplanted in the gardens. Now it is November and it is time to plant onions, so last week was spent prepping the second “Food Pyramid” (a triangular garden section with four rows to plant veg and three walkways) in “Martha’s Vineyard” (a fenced in garden where the grape vines will be planted in a garden bed designed after one of Martha Washington’s gardens). When we had to dig out the walkways in the East Garden Tunnel we dumped all the dirt in one of the sections in Martha’s Vineyard. We had to get the area weeded before we could spread out the dirt—and the majority of the weeds were nut grass. We have been working on it for weeks and we finally accomplished it last week. It was so nice to see the garden bed take shape. I got the area staked out and then I strung the wires to mark the beds. Mom was working at the bottom of the “food pyramid” and I started at the point. I weeded, and then I spread and leveled the dirt. Once the point was done I moved to the next section and so forth. By Thursday night all the sections for planting was done. We have too much dirt in one of the walkways, but we have to weed the area where the grapevines will be planted so that we can fill it will the excess dirt. I was hoping to be able to plant sweet onions on Friday—but the local feed store has not been able to secure any onions so I had to order them online and now I wait for them to arrive. I did manage to get some yellow onion seeds planted in the greenhouse though.
Getting the garden ready to plant onions was not the only thing we did in the garden last week. With colder weather fast approaching we had to get the plastic covering back on the East Tunnel (it was cut off during Hurricane Idalia). We had a long 130 foot long piece of plastic that we cut in half to cover our 50 foot long caterpillar tunnel. Papa grabbed one corner, and Steve grabbed the other corner. I grabbed a big push broom and went inside the tunnel to help push the plastic over the top of the tunnel while Papa and Steve pulled it over. Mom helped guide them and keep the plastic from getting stuck on any sharp pieces of metal. Once the plastic was over then they had to use wiggle wire to secure it to the tunnel frame. Usually we cut the sides off so that we do not have to mess with them because they fill up with water when you drape them up, but this year Papa wanted to leave the sides on and buy the mechanisms to crank the sides up into a nice tight roll. Once the plastic was all secure then Papa and Steve had to go retrieve the last fence panel from the sheep barn and close in the last section of Martha’s Vineyard so that Papa could put up the hot wire around the top of the fencing to keep the deer out. The funny thing was that when Papa and I got back from town Tuesday night I didn’t think that he was going to have time to deer proof the garden until Thursday—so I quickly grabbed a roll of hot wire netting fence and headed to the garden and put it up around the vegetables that the deer were enjoying (bok choy and kale). Then I came back and asked Papa to hook the solar energizer to the fence to make it hot. What I didn’t know was that Papa was gathering the tools that he would need to complete the high tensile wire around Martha’s Vineyard so that he could electrify it. By the time I had dinner done Papa had the high tensile wire hot and the netting hot—and so far we have not seen any more signs of deer in the garden.
It has been a few months since anything has been done down at our 1915 house. We had hoped to have the remodeling done by now—but life happens and setbacks occur. One of those setbacks was Hurricane Idalia who downed five large oak trees around the house and barn. One of the trees fell on the edge of the roof of the house—but thankfully did no damage. No work could be done on the house until the trees were taken care of, and the trees couldn’t be taken care off until our neighbor’s tractor got out of the shop. His tractor was needed because he has a large grapple that attaches to the front to make picking up the trees easier. A few weeks ago the tractor was returned and clean up could begin. Mom is hoping to get the tree trunks milled into lumber, and the branches were all burned. Wood ash is great fertilizer for the garden, so Thursday Mom and I took two large buckets down to the house and filled them up with wood ash. I was very excited because the ash bucket was empty and I had already emptied the ash tray from our wood burning stove so I really didn’t have any ashes to put in the garden beds for the onions. Now we have plenty—and a huge pile if I need more. With the trees cleaned up for the most part, our neighbor (who happens to own the house with us, and happens to be a contractor) was able to start leveling the house. Once the house is leveled then we can start on the remodeling.
Weeds are not the only thing we have been collecting out of the garden of late—we have been harvesting green beans too! It is always a blessing when a crop produces abundantly and you have enough to can so that you can eat them all year long. We have been harvesting the beans for a few weeks now, and get two pickings a week. We spend our Wednesday and Saturday afternoons snapping and canning the green beans. So far we have close to 75 pints of green beans canned for future meals.
Tomorrow we are going to be digging holes in the garden looking for . . . sweet potatoes. I hope that we find a bunch!
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare