Nothing Much Today

Nothing much happened today. I had to go get steel-toed boots for work. We have to do a safety check walk-through this coming week. This is something we do to make sure the plant is safe. Being an admin assistant, it is weird to get out of the office and into the plant. However, this is good since I am a fresh pair of eyes to check for odd things around the plant. What is good, that my employers may not know, is that I was an inspector a very long time ago. I inspected plastics for errors in manufacture. I love picking apart things, which is good in a way. One way it is good is that I can pick apart and recreate a lot of recipes that others may not be able to. Actually, to toot my own horn, my recipes turn out better than the originals. IMHO. ; )

I pulled weeds from my itty bitty strawberry patch. Some of those plants have flowers and fruit. They really shouldn't have any since they are so small. I'll probably end up picking off the buds and fruit so the energy will go into making good plants.

I also made another enchilada pie and some ham and scalloped potatoes for dinners this week. I need to think of a cold side dish to make so we can have a variety and quick meals during the week.

I just came in the house and I am ready for movie night on Netflix. We LOVE Netflix!

Take care.

Baby Strawberry Plants

A few posts ago, I showed you a picture of our large strawberry patch. We also have one for baby plants the I just couldn't turn under for compost.

Strawberry Nursery

Here they are. They are so tiny! I think these are the ones which came up from the seeds on the sides of rotten strawberries that I threw on the ground last year. The reason I think this, is that the plants are so tiny and they do not have a runner attached to them. There are about 135 plants here. This year they shouldn't bear fruit. They will grow and propagate themselves into another massive plot of plants. Next year, they will have fruit. I make a nursery like this in case something goes terribly wrong with the main berry patch. Then we'll have backups for planting next year. I do this with a lot of things. If you look up to the very top of this photo, you'll see another raised bed. This is my other nursery for herbs, onions and flowers that were too small to do anything with last year. I've already moved a lot of the small plants out of there and into their new home. In a little while, my herbs will take off. I have some onions planted in there, too. That is the green color you see.

So long for now. Until tomorrow!

Picture of Our Strawberry Patch

Here it is in all of its glory! Ta daaaaaaah!

Big Strawberry Patch

There are about 1100 plants in this area. I'm tired!

Our one experiment is the difference between using the black landscape fabric and the clear plastic. We are going to see which grows best. I'm betting on the landscape fabric because of the porosity.

Our other experiment is the piping in the foreground. We took 50 foot long garden hoses and pierced them with 1/8" holes about every 6". We hooked them up to PVC pipe and a petcock to control the water flow.  It works really well. We'll have to see how it does over the summer.

We wanted to make it easier and more efficient to water. If we get to the roots quicker and without the water flying through the air on sprinklers, then we can get them watered in a shorter time. We can also save on evaporation. We water at night, so we don't usually get a lot of evaporation. Yeah, I know. We should water during the day so the leaves don't rot. We've never watered in the daytime because of burning the leaves. We get temps of 90 to 100+ degrees during the day. We've never had rot or mold on our plants by watering at night.

Wish us luck with our experiments!

Take care. Happy farming!

Rain, Rain. Go Away!

Beginning Thursday afternoon, we've had rain. Lots of rain! We were shin-deep in water on our property. Where we live, we are pretty much at sea level...maybe 1 foot above. If we dig a hole, we get water at about 1 foot. Sometimes a little more. This means we have to have a deep ditch around the perimeter of the property in order to grow things. Well, sometimes it still floods, but the ditches make the water clear off quicker. Needless to say, Thursday, Friday and Saturday our strawberry patch was pretty much flooded. One low end was under water along with our mustard greens and onion sets, which is planted in front of the last row. This is not good because the strawberry plants grow from the crown. Those shouldn't get soaked like that. I may lose part of the strawberry patch. As soon as I can figure out why I can't post pics, I'll get pics to show you the strawberry patch and part of the food garden so you can see what I mean.

Also, the chickens were partially under water. On days like this, I call them duckies because they sometimes have to wade through water. Luckily there is a large portion of their run which is high and dry. I'm sure they get upset when they get water like this. I'm thankful it only happens a couple of times a year.

Today, we have no rain. It is sunny! Yay! I went outside and got my potting soil and compost mix so I can transplant seedlings from indoors. Right now, I have red peppers, yellow peppers, eggplants and summer squash transplanted. They are sitting outside under the picnic pavilion hardening off for a bit. It's a little over 60 degrees F outside, so they'll be getting a little bit of air. Hopefully they will get good stalks from being outside. They're a bit spindly right now.

I've sunk the summer squash stems about 2" into their new pots. Some say that the squash won't transplant well and they'll die. I've wondered why this is? They sell the squash starts at the garden centers. I've always sown the squash seeds directly into the garden. So this is one of my experiments for this year.

In a couple of weeks, I'll be transplanting all into the garden after the frost has finished. Wish me luck!

Good luck to all of you with your gardens this year!!!