SQUASH

FISH EMULSION - ORGANIC FERTILIZER-SO SMELLY!!

ONE OF OUR PEST CONTROL TECHNICIANS BUSY AT WORK

THIS IS IN THE SHADE

MORE PRETTY BUTTERFLIES

ONE OF OUR 3 BLACKBERRY PLANTS

THE CORN GROWING QUICKLY

ANOTHER BUTTERFLY...TINY BLUE ONE

OUR FIRST CROP - PICKLING CUCUMBERS

SQUASH PLANT

This weekend (July 23-25) we did some more watering of the plants since it just refuses to rain. The drip hoses are working great. We also fertilized with the fish emulsion, sheep manure and planted our 3 blackberry plants. Alex and his friend, Alex drove the truck and trailer to our friend's farm and picked up a load of more sheep manure. Cris purchased a scythe online and it works great to cut weeds. It is quite scary looking though and will take your leg off if you are not careful. It looks like the thing the grim reaper carries around.

Saturday night we had dinner with friends at Evergreen Dairy Farm in Middleton, TN. Dinner and conversation was great and it is nice to sample items from our friend's gardens. The dairy farm offers organic raw milk and I must say, it is delicious and their farm and operation is so beautiful and very clean.

Next weekend we hope to purchase the gates finally to put on the barn and we are also meeting with someone to discuss a gravel driveway.

Butterflies

SOME OF THE BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLIES WE HAVE SEEN AT THE FARM

Where to put all the water.....

This is the okra from last week - we had to put some organic powder stuff on it to get the aphids and ants off it. This week we saw that that ants were gone and the ladybugs were taking care of the aphids. Good ladybugs. :)

Beans - not sure what kind

My Fall front yard decoration from last year is now working in the garden.

Rain Water Run-Off Hose

TRENCHES BEFORE THEY ARE COVERED BACK UP WITH DIRT

Today we worked on the overflow system for the two rain barrels we have hooked up to the gutters on the barn. For now, we have decided to just dig a trench and run some plastic 6 inch hose to the ditch in the woods to keep the runoff away from the barn. The barrels fill up so fast when it rains. Our goal is to purchase a big water storage tank and fill it with the rain barrel overflow, then use that water for the garden drip hoses.

The garden looks good, did some weeding today and no need to water since it rained like crazy this past week. The 3 row fencing seems to be working to keep the deer out.

I Would Love To Be Singing in the Rain

3 ROW FENCE LINE TECHNIQUE

Well I guess Mother Nature decided we had way too much rain this past Winter and Spring because she is sure holding back on us now. We see the rain clouds all around but they seem to part like the Red Sea when they get close to the farm and then....no rain.

Thank goodness we have access to water at our pond. With a pump, couple hundred feet of hose and 2 water sprinklers, we have been able to keep our vegetables alive and more importantly, nicely growing. The tomato plants look wonderful as well as the squash and cucs....these we started out as seedlings. The seeds we planted right into the ground are growing nicely but the deer have discovered the garden finally and seem to enjoy the Lima beans. I thought it might be a rabbit but the deer tracks made me think otherwise.

This weekend we are putting up electric fencing around the garden. We are trying the 3 row method of fencing which is suppose to keep the deer out because they can't determine the depth of things. This is suppose to keep them from jumping over the fence. We will have one row of electric fencing and two inner rows of just regular twine type fencing. I will let you know how it works out.

Alex has become a pro at using the tractor and bush hog. He has been clearing out the terrace areas and Cris cleared some paths around the pond. Alex likes the path around the pond; he times himself on the ATV to see how fast he can do the trail.

Cris picked up a cool gadget at Radio Shack this week. It's a weather station that has a part that you hang up outside and its measures the wind, temp, humidity and rainfall. It has a sensor and it will remotely transfer the information to the indoor unit and store up to a week's worth of data. That way we can keep track of any rain that may come along. It was originally over $100 and marked down to about $40. I am sure it will be useful if it ever rains again. (NOTE: We have since found out that it only keeps 24 hours worth if information, not a weeks worth. The week's worth one was over $200.)

I got to thinking today as Cris was hooking up the electric fence and Alex was bush hogging in the field, the dogs were chasing dragon flies and I was on the trailer shoveling sheep manure into the compost pile...... if someone would have told me ten years ago, we would be doing this, I would have laughed in their face and said they were crazy....heck, even 5 years ago. I appreciate all the support and encouragement we have received as we start our new adventure... my dad thinks I am nuts but that is because he worked on a farm from around the age of 10 and knows what hard work it is.

So, why are we doing this? Cris always wanted to have a vegetable garden but the last two houses we have lived in did not have enough sun in the yard to accommodate a garden. After moving to Memphis, we started shopping each Saturday at the Memphis Farmer's Market, something we did not have nearby when we lived in Maryland. I guess what really opened our eyes was watching the film, Food, Inc. and realizing that we needed to know what was really in our food, how our food was grown and how important it is to read labels.

The other factor that made us decide to purchase land was the fact that we lived within the city limits of Memphis and it is just too expensive to live here anymore. We are taxed for everything here and I don't see it getting any better. Crime in the city is high and again, I don't see that getting any better.

So we bought some land, built a barn, started a garden and hopefully next year, we will build a house. We are learning a lot and of course, making mistakes but it has all been worth it.

June 30, 2010

June 13 after planting the tomatoes but before covering with mulch.

The seeder Cris used to plant this weekend.

One of the tomato plants after 2 weeks in the ground


New gutters for the barn and rain barrels.

Using screen door mesh to keep bugs out of water.

Now that the barn is 99.9 percent complete (little odds and ends will be finished when it's not 90-100 degrees outside), we have been turning our attention to the vegetable garden. We planted over 70 tomato plants, some squash, cucs, zucchini and okra. I do not recommend using the 'newspaper pots' that we blogged about earlier..... the plants did not do well in them...too wet I think. As you can see by the photos, we did used newspapers as weed block, followed by a cover of mulch and compost which seems to work pretty good. We decided to do the planting on one of the hottest weekends we have had so far. It was rough but I had a mini umbrella with stand that I carried around with me. We planted on June 13th and despite the lack of rain the last couple of weeks, the tomotos are doing great. Some of our other plants did not do so well but we planted more seeds to replace them. This past Sunday we planted beans, peppers, sweet corn and more squash and cucs. Cris bought a seed planter that you walk behind and the seeds drop out and then the planter has a part on it that covers the seed. It worked pretty good.

We did get a great rainstorm this past Saturday so hopefully that will help the vegies sprout.

We have a lot of wild blackberries growing and the organic blackberry plant we have at home in Memphis is blooming with berries.....unfortunately, the dogs eat them as soon as they get ripe.

As I stated before, at times, it seems like we are working on the equipment more than actually working on the farm. The tractor gave us a fit this past weekend but it's nothing that Cris can't fix....it's just finding the time to do it. He seems to think the gas tank is dirty and it's clogging up the carburetor. It's an old Ford tractor without a filter....but he plans to put a filter in between the gas tank and carburetor to clean up the gunk. I'm glad he knows what he is doing.

This past weekend we also put up 100 feet of gutter and installed rain barrels on the barn. The goal is to catch the rain (if it ever rains) and then use it to water the plants.

This weekend we are harvesting honey. The bees have been so busy so we are hoping for some really sweet honey.

The wheat has been harvested off our property and the natural grasses from the area are growing in nicely. This means we don't have to do much planting in the way of a cover crop...which is a good thing.

Didn't get any pictures taken this past weekend. (June 4-6). We were super busy working on the trim, finishing up the painting and other little things that have to be done to call the barn complete. This weekend we hope to have all the trim inside and outside the barn finished and then insulate the little areas in the corners and certain places on the roof that need some foam insulation to keep the bugs out.

After that, it's clean up the barn and start organizing the inside. We plan to purchase barn gates to use as doors for the area that will house the ATV's so we can keep them locked up. Also, in a couple months, we will buy a dump truck load of gravel to put in the 'garage' area of the barn. We need the entire driveway graveled but that will have to wait until it's in our budget. For now, the dirt driveway is fine but come winter, it may get messy and hard to drive on the dirt.

If all goes well, we will plant the tomotoes Sunday.

Coming Down the Home Stretch

The floor to the shop after it was painted.

The Barn as of Memorial Day 2010

There is an end in sight..... we will have this barn finished hopefully this coming weekend. Memorial Day Weekend was spent painting the 24x24 floor in the shop area, putting up 4 walls which included 3 windows and a 6 ft. wide barn door that Cris made, painting the outside walls (Sandy did ALL that herself), painting the outside trim (Sandy again), plus more roof work.

We met with the electric company and it seems that we will need at least 2 utility poles to get from the road to the barn. They are going to install a temporary electric line like they do for home construction. The cost for the poles run about $1000 a pole.