The only hold up was that it rained and partly filled the holes and Mike had to dig out holes after they dried up a bit (= delay) so it took quite a while to get the fence in!! Then there were the gates- had to wait for some materials at the local lumber store, so Mike made a temporary gate so I could plant. By now it's at least a month past when everyone else planted their gardens! Rather than pass, I figure whatever we get is more than we would have had if I planted nothing and waited for next year! Also, I had to reclaim that area from the industrious fireants. (below)
Then we've had a couple of weeks worth of 100+ degree days which challenged my young tender plants! The intense daytime sun was wilting my plants and I had to revive them every morning!! (sad squash below) ..... (to the right is the same plant NOW!!)
So I started watering more deeply with little wells around each hill or group of plants and that REALLY paid off!!! Now I have little to no wilting and I'm starting to get some yellow squash, okra, and there must be a dozen canteloupes coming along nicely. The watermelon, pumpkins, cucumbers and tomatoes show great promise. The corn is rather stunted, but it is tasselling out and maybe we'll have mini-ears!!!
A couple days after Mike finished installing these sturdy gates, one of the horses put some muscle on one and ripped the top hinge right out of the wood and twisted the heck out of the bottom one, walked over the gate and sampled half of the corn plants (well, it looked like grass!!!). So now we have fewer corn plants and even sturdier gates!!!
3 comments:
lookin good!! can't wait to come out again and try the totally organic meals you are gonna make with your veggie garden!!
Looks good for the first year, especially because it got behind schedule. When the year's over, you just gonna rototil the entire thing up and go big?
Yeah. We'll mix in a lot of our 'used horse food' and rotted hay, along with some phosphorous fertilizer, and let it sit over the winter.
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