Garden 2017

I have yet to make any post concerning our garden and for good reason. We don’t have much of one

Setting up our Garden Space   

Even though we live on a small property we are out in the country, surrounded by forests and fields. We knew there was a distinct possibility that we would have pressures from local wildlife. So we wanted to make sure our garden was fenced in. The problem was of course budget. To get around having to fence the entire thing in we simply sectioned off an area in the portion of the yard that already had a chain-link fence. We took small trees we had cut down to make posts and then tied the branches along them, hoping this would be enough for the dogs to realize they shouldn’t go back there. Wishful thinking for sure. The gate was made of recycled pallet wood from out recycle center.  (Boy are pallets hard to take apart!)

(all the nails and staples we pulled out of one pallet)

Once we realized that wouldn’t work I put up some bird netting. Yaaaaah that didn’t work either. So we took these slats of wood we got from our recycle center and my husband pounded them into the ground and wove horizontal pieces in. Let’s just say our dogs are wylie and even that took a little bit of finesse to get it to work.   

Besides the fencing we knew the soil needed to be amended. We did buy some compost and manure from Lowes which covered about a third of the area we intended to garden. The budget wouldn’t allow us to buy more so we borrowed a friend’s truck and went down to the city composting facility. I say city compost facility like it’s a fancy operation. Really it’s just tree clippings from the county maintenance and food scraps from the prison across the street. We got one truck load of compost and one of mulch. Even that did not cover the entire area. So we decided that was going to have to be good enough and it sat for a while.   One thing to note about government run composting facilities: There is a TON of trash. Not easy to find either as it's all been chopped into fine pieces. If you have the extra time to go through it, all power to you. We will probably not be using it again.

Knowing we couldn’t afford to buy enough wood chips to cover the area. I looked for other ways to create the covering that makes the Back to Eden garden method so successful. We had a bunch of leaves and pine needles laying around so I raked those up and covered the area.   

When I planted all of the seeds I did fill each hole with some crushed egg shells (organic, from the store) and fungal  mycorrhizae  we bought off amazon. All in all we probably didn't spend more than $80 on our entire garden this year. Was it worth it? Probably not. Obviously we will have to wait and see if we produce anything but we probably would have been better off preparing a permanent garden space for the next year. 

What did we plant?   

24 Tomato Plants 

11 Bell Pepper Plants 

8 Jalapeno Plants 

11 Cayenne Pepper Plants 

4 cucumber Plants 

4 Achocha Cucumber Plants (I planted seeds for everything twice because our germination rate was so bad the first time around)   

What do we have left?   

5 Tomato Plants

 5 Cucumber (after replanting seeds twice)  

 So what happened?   

To start with we planted a little late for our area. I doubt that has much to do with it but who knows. Our germination rate was TERRIBLE. All the cucumbers sprouted at some point (achocha only one sprouted) and most of the tomatoes did as well. The peppers on the other hand did not. Only 2 bell peppers sprouted at all and they quickly disappeared.  

Of the plants that sprouted we lost most of them to pests. I used the neem oil and Dr. Bronner’s sal suds mixture recommended by An American Homestead and found on boogiebrew.net. My guess is the near daily rain washed the majority of it off and the pests got to the plants before I reapplied. It’s either that or the squirrels also enjoyed some of our plants. Some days I would go out there and an entire plant would be gone with just a stem sticking out of the ground. It has been frustrating to say the least. 

(our best tomato plant)

We still have not gotten any produce out of our garden. Only in the last week or so have there been flowers on the cucumbers and still nothing on the tomato plants. We have however gotten produce out of our compost :D. Another post about that coming soon! We are going to keep trying but my hopes are not high for this years garden. If you would like to see what we plan for next year check out our last post .https://steemit.com/steemdreampayfwd/@minighomestead/steemdreampayfwd-mini-georgian-homestead  

  

Like us on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/MiniGeorgianHomestead/

Follow us on Steemit
https://steemit.com/@minighomestead

Follow Us on Pinterest
https://www.pinterest.com/?utm_medium=email&expiration=1497623966&user_id=357614164069464649

We are working on our patreon account. Stay tuned!