Death To Zombies

Since we’ve finally had a dry spell, I’ve been able to make some progress in the garden.  I transplanted 12 green bell peppers and 6 jalapenos into the garden.  I ripped out the arugula that had gone to seed.  Then I harvested all my spinach.  I didn’t get as much out as I wanted.  I wanted to produce 12# this year and I only got out 1.75 but that was due to me not preparing enough space for new plants before the heat came on.  I may be able to make up for it in the fall.

I also managed to get some fertilizer put in and replaced the two sunflower plants that never sprouted due to all the wetness.  I dug a large watermelon and cantaloupe patch but I need some more rain to incorporate the fertilizer and calcium I amended the soil with.  After that I’ll wrap it all in black plastic and put the plants in.  I’ll have to concentrate on early varieties since I’m planting late.

Since it’s June I’ve started my fall broccoli and cabbage indoors.  I’ll plant the kale indoors soon.  I’ve started a ton of flowers indoors, Black Eyed Susans, Morning Glories, Salvia and Purple Coneflower.  I’m going to run the Morning Glories along the fence so I don’t have to run the weed whacker as much.

My Swiss Chard is coming along nicely and my Fennel is looking very nice after I weeded them aggressively during all the rain a week ago.  The rain barrel is really helping me in the garden because my outside faucet froze up this winter and I had to cap the line.  I need to finish setting up my 200+ gallon tote.  I got the ball valve in the mail, but I need to elevate the tote a bit more.  I didn’t understand why I saw some other people using rail road ties to elevate theirs until my small scale 55 gallon barrel started to get low on water.  It’s hard to get the last third of water out of the barrel when it’s too close to the ground.

My first plantings of Radishes are all ready to be consumed and I’ve planted more than I can eat.  But I’ve started to harvest them anyhow, just so that I can start the next plantings of them.  I’ve got 8 tomato plants out.  I wanted to get 16 put in, but again I haven’t prepared enough space for all of them.  Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda…

The potato plants are coming along nicely although I’m not sure how ugly the potatoes are going to be since I planted in an area where theres a lot of gravel in the soil.  The soil in the rest of the garden is definitely coming along nicely though.  It is absolutely easier to dig and weed this year, so that investment in peat moss, compost and sand have definitely paid off.  I’ll keep amending the soil aggressively in future years.

My plastic fencing I bought last year broke down in just one season and the dogs and rabbits were easily getting into the garden.  So I’ve finally buckled down and invested in some true metal fencing and more T-posts.

The good news is that I’ve invested probably 80 hours into planning exactly what my nutritional needs were for the full year and then extended that into determining how much I need to plant and how large the garden needs to be.  It appears to be around a fifth of an acre will need to be planted.  That’s big, but that includes a ton of berries, wheat, oats, dark green veggies, orange veggies and a ton of my favorites Arugula and Bell Peppers.

I’ve been working on the garden a fair amount.  But I planted all my existing plots very early so today I laid in 70′ more of fencing so that I can plant some more area without the rabbits chomping it or dogs stomping it.  This was mainly motivated not by the silly wabbits or the pups but more by my neighbors poor fencing that let one of his 30 goats hop into my yard.  While the dogs kept the wandering goat at bay, I still thought it made sense to protect the area before I tilled.  I went with T-posts and hog wire fencing because I may move and rent this place.  If the renter doesn’t like gardening, I don’t want to limit my options to just rip out the fencing and lay in grass.

To help motivate me to keep my butt moving I created a gardening playlist that I can listen to while I work.  I’ll warn the light at heart that it’s got a bunch of really wholesome songs mixed with some of my country favorites that are a bit more hardcore.  What’s that, you say, how could country be hardcore?  Trust me, Hank III(son of Hank Williams Jr.), and some of my other choices do have some choice language.   I don’t tend to play it on shuffle, so pay no attention to the order it’s listed in.  I’ve also included a few poems from famous poets of yore recorded on librivox.  Librivox is a service that provides free MP3s of non-copyrighted material.

1. Plow To The End Of The Row by Adrienne Young
2. The Anti-Garden Song by Amy Carlson
3. Children Play With Earth by Arrested Development
4. I’m A Lonely Little Petunia (In An Onion Patch) by Arthur Godfrey
5. Wait at Milano by Tim Barry
6. Octopus’ Garden by The Beatles
7. Redneck Girl by The Bellamy Brothers
8. Plow You Under by Scott H. Biram
9. Red Neck, Blue Collar by Bob Frank
10. Garden Song by John Denver
11. Call Any Vegetable by Frank Zappa
12. Canned Goods by Greg Brown
13. Talking Hard Work by Woody Guthrie
14. Sowing on the Mountain by Woody Guthrie
15. Homegrown Tomatoes by Guy Clark
16. Lookin’ For A Mountain by Hank III
17. It’s Alright to be a Redneck by Alan Jackson
18. Tomato Puddin’ by Jeff Daniels
19. Tomato Vendetta by Jennericfish
20. John Deere Green by Joe Diffie
21. Family Garden by John McCutcheon
22. Save The Seeds by Karen O
23. My Father’s Garden by Kat Eggleston
24. Daddy Won’t Sell the Farm by Montgomery Gentry
25. Learning to Fly by Pink Floyd
26. This Farm Needs a Man by Red Molly
27. Farm Fresh Onions by Robert Earl Keen
28. Roots by Roby Landis
29. Ragweed Ruth by Rosalie Sorrels
30. The Garden by Ruth Moody
31. This Hard Land by Bruce Springsteen
32. The Field Behind The Plow by Stan Rogers
33. Talkin’ Harvest Time Blues by Stephanie Davis
34. The Vegetable Song by Steve Goodman
35. Farmer’s Blues (Feat. Merle Haggard) by Marty Stuart
36. Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads
37. Bringing In The Sheaves by Tennessee Ernie Ford
38. KB’s Garden by Leslie Tucker
39. Solitary Reaper by Williams Wordsworth
40. Redneck Woman by Gretchen Wilson
41. Winter by Robert Louis Stevenson
42. Winter by William Shakespeare