Summer Plans...

The weather here lately has been summery to say the least. We reached 90 degrees one day this week and weren't far from it during the rest.

These warmer temperatures have been cooking a few ideas I have in my mind for summer projects.

Unfortunately, my summer is not shaping up how I thought it would. Whereas I once thought I would take no classes, I am now taking two classes and will be working a job and (hopefully) a summer assistantship to pay for them.

So, my summer schedule thus far is the most hectic of all.

But after this semester ends (classes end in another week and my assistantship ends on the 15th) I will have one blissfully empty week before summer classes begin.

This is where my mind is currently focused (not, unfortunately, on a paper due tomorrow) and where my "real" summer plans reside.

During that week, I want to:

1. Make a garden apron (like I saw here and here)
2. Make some rosemary shampoo, tarragon perfume and herbal deodorant
3. Construct a ladybug house
4. Make these cute row labels (good ideas here)
5. Drink a cold bottle of wine (and have Adam drive me home!) in the garden on a cool night

Sounds good, right?! It might be a little ambitious for one week, especially since I won't actually be in town for that entire week, but I am looking forward to it.

Now I just need to focus on my papers.

In Honor of This American Life...

Adam and I weren't able to go to the farm tonight because we went to the live show of This American Life instead. (Really good, by the way).

So, in honor of This American Life, here's a little story. It's a farm story that has nothing to do with our plants.

The plot behind ours has been inactive so far this season. So we were a little surprised, when we arrived Wednesday evening, to see it tilled and planted. Standing in the middle of the new plants, and surrounded by a skimpy and apparently temporary fence, was a man in a suit watering his new plants.

Adam was tilling our garden at this point so the man introduced himself to me. I can't quite remember his name but I think it was Bob. Or Bill. Aside from the fact that he kept calling me "Karen" and he had a massive comb-over, he seemed very nice and we were happy to have him as a plot-neighbor.

As we were saying our goodbyes, Bob/Bill said:

By the way, when I came out the other night, your fence was knocked over. I'm pretty sure a deer did it. Anyway, I righted the fence but I though I'd let you know.

Upon arrival at our plot that night we had noticed that our back fence was ripped and a little...tilted. We weren't overly concerned because the rip is easily repairable and the fence itself was still stable. Plus, deer haven't been a problem for us and we don't have to worry about keeping them out.

So it surprised me when he said a deer must have done it. I told Bob/Bill as much to which he responded:

Oh? You haven't had a deer problem over here? Well, it was most certainly a deer. I even think I saw a mom and her baby earlier.

After telling me this news, Bob/Bill tells me they are putting in (get this) an electric fence! To keep the deer out. Last year, they had a plot on the other side of the farm and apparently the deer destroyed their plants. I'm thinking an electric fence is a little extreme for a garden plot, but I keep that opinion to myself.

Later in the evening, I am talking to some other plot-neighbors of ours and I warn them about the impending electric fence. My plot neighbor says:

Oh, I meant to tell you, I was out here the other night and Bob/Bill had just finished planting his tomatoes. He was running his hose along the aisle between your plots and fell over your fence. I saw the whole thing! Then, he put the fence back and left.

Can you believe it? Bob/Bill is a lying liar! I guess I could be mad but I just find the whole thing funny. You don't expect to encounter bold duplicity at a community garden but there you have it.

Needless to say, Bob/Bill with his electric fence, comb-over and pants-on-fire will be an interesting addition to our little neighborhood.

Photo Survey - Sheds

I told you earlier about our tool "shed" and how we did it on the cheapy cheap. I thought I'd show you what some other gardeners are doing, in terms of storage, at the farm.

Thank you, mulch.

We got a lot done at the garden today and our garden, I must say, is doing very well. So far, we haven't had many weeds (except in the aisles - which Adam tilled today) and we are thanking the mulch for that. Although we've only had to spot-weed, we are on the lookout for more mulch.

So, to update you on some things:

Onions



Zucchini



Lettuce


Potatoes


The cabbage, cucumber, peppers, strawberries, tomatoes and herbs are also doing great.

We did have a fatality this week - our okra.


I was shocked! Okra was the one plant we could really count on last season. Although we initially blamed deer (more on that later), Adam thinks slugs were the culprit. Ew.

Oh well, we'll try again. And this time we'll probably cover them, like we did with our lettuce on the second go-round.

While Adam tilled our rows today, I planted some mint (in a pot so that it doesn't take over)...


...and some wildflowers (these are going all along our fence).

Happy Earth Day!

(Incidentally, doesn't our earth look kind of like brownie batter? Yum.)

Suggestion for a New Title

We aren't thinking of changing our blog name but someone did offer this name-change suggestion:

"A Rake and a Ho(e)"

Adam being the Rake and me being the Ho(e). I assume.

I'm not sure if I should be pleased or offended by this name suggestion. I think I'll be pleased.

Next up:
Lettuce Harvest? Already?
Pepper update
More planting - beans, corn and flowers

Mad Planting

On the way to the garden today, Adam and I got into a little fight. We don't fight very often but I love how we can both keep our sense of humor during a fight because, usually at some super dramatic moment, one or both of us will start laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. And it is hard to fight in earnest after you've had a good laugh.

That happened today when we were planting. Well, at least, it happened for me. Once we got to the garden we were both steaming and we proceeded to plant in stony silence.

That silence was periodically broken by tersely worded questions like "Where does this basil go?" or "The cabbage perked up" followed by a grunt of acknowledgment.

This is what got me laughing.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that we made up. We are one little happy family again. I was a little worried that our plants would be affected by the harsh words that we uttered while planting. But we made it up to them too.

So today we planted:


basil (not pictured)

zucchini

okra

cucumbers

And our cabbage has, indeed, perked up.

Speed Planting

Today we (quickly) planted more peppers, tomatoes, marigolds and tarragon. The reason for our haste was because we had to be back home by 8pm for "Lost." We are a bit obsessed.

I'm particularly excited about the tarragon. I love tarragon - the taste and the smell. I happen to have a recipe for tarragon perfume I'd like to try out this year:

Tarragon Perfume (from The Encyclopedia of Country Living)
2 Tbs fresh tarragon, crushed
1 cup quality oil
1 tsp distilled vinegar

Place crushed herbs in a bottle. Cover with the oil and vinegar. Cap the bottle and place in the hot sunshine. Shake the bottle twice daily for three weeks. Strain and use. This can be used as perfume or in dishes. Yum!

I hope to try this as soon as I have enough tarragon. I'll let you know how it goes.

Phew!

We went out to the farm today for the first time since the storm and pretty much everything was intact. The only thing out of place was the cover to our little tool "shed" which had partially blown away.

Here's the status on everything:
lettuce and tomatoes= excellent
onions, herbs, collards and strawberries = good
cabbage = rebounding
peppers = so-so
potatoes = no growth yet

Of course, I forgot the camera so I wasn't able to take any pictures. I did pluck the flowers off some thyme and took a picture when I got home.

Picture of the Day

Who knew potato eye-sprouts could be so pretty?

These here are from a red potato.

Picture of the Day

We've never really had a problem with pests in our little garden. Some of our plot neighbors are obsessed with keeping deer, rabbits, etc. out but we've really only seen a few rabbits and absolutely no deer.

So it surprised us when our first round of lettuce was pecked to death by birds.

We wised up and protected our second batch.

So far, so good.

All in a Twitter

We will be out-of-town this Easter weekend but it looks like our little garden should be getting a fair amount of rain while we are gone. If it does get a little dry, wouldn't it be great if our plants could let us know they're parched?

Well now your plants can Twitter you. Granted, I don't really understand what Twittering is (I have yet to master "texting") but apparently a new device will allow your plants to Twitter when they need water.

I'm not so sure about this. I think we all know those people who are constantly checking their phones or updating their Facebook status with such mundane things as "I'm brushing my teeth and then I'm going to floss!" What if I become obsessed with my plants' hydration status?

Or worse, what if my plants become obsessed with telling me their hydration status?

So, I think we'll forgo this foray into gardening technology for the time being. I like my plants to be the strong, silent type.

Send good thoughts to the garden!

Arkansas has been pretty lucky this year weather-wise. We haven't had any major storms - unlike last spring.

We did have some serious storms move through tonight though. Luckily, central Arkansas did not have any tornadoes but we had a lot of wind and a lot of hail. I kept picturing our poor little peppers being ripped to shreds by apple-sized (yes, apple-sized) hail.

In a side note, how do you like the new layout? Yay or nay?

UPDATE: Forget the garden, send good thoughts to Mena, AR instead.

Watering Woes

One big goal for this year is to figure out our watering system. Last year, we were plagued with watering problems. The water pressure at the farm is so strong that our cheap-o hoses were constantly busting, creating "Lake 25x50" instead of "Garden Plot 25x50."

When we finally bought a decent hose, we showed a remarkable inability to learn from our mistakes and hooked it up to a cheap-o sprinkler. The water pressure caused the sprinkler to rise up and flop around in the dirt so that we had to drive spikes through it in order to keep it stable.

A million other little problems kept creeping up with our sprinkler system last year of which I will spare you the details.

So, this year we have created a new watering system. We put two poles in the ground in the middle of the garden. Initially, we attached oscillating sprinkler heads but these proved to be too powerful for our little space.


Then, Adam brought out the very first watering sprinkler-thing we ever used: The Pound of Rain. This he haphazardly attached to one of the poles and it watered the front half of our garden beautifully without also watering our neighbor's plots.

So, we bought another Pound of Rain (so that we'll have one in front and one in back) and found two tiki torches (on the side of the road) which will work better than the two poles when it comes to holding the Pound of Rain.

We are going to test it out today. If it works, we are going to bury the ugly bright yellow hose so that we aren't constantly tripping over it. Wish us luck!

UPDATE: New watering system works wonderfully. We weren't able to bury the eyesore of a hose tonight but hopefully we'll get to it next weekend.

Cold Peppers

Winter decided to make a final push here in Arkansas. The temperatures on Sunday fell dramatically and the whole state was under a hard frost warning for both Sunday and Monday night.

So, we ventured out to the farm in a swirl of bone-cold wind (particularly jarring since we've been enjoying mid-70s weather) to protect our peppers and tomatoes with homemade cloches.

Our plants owe a debt of gratitude to our addiction to seltzer water because we had a large quantity of empty plastic bottles on hand. Adam, ever the boy scout, tells me he was saving these for just this purpose. We'll remove them on Wednesday when the temperatures return to their normal springtime haunts.

Picture of the Day

Look what I found wiggling through our dirt!

We named him Cletus.

After a brief talk (in which I told Cletus I hope I don't accidentally spear him with a garden tool when next we meet) I bid him goodbye and wished him many worm children.

One Tomato, Dead Tomato

Not sure what happened to this hapless tomato but it just did not make it!


Our other tomatoes look great though. You win some, you lose some.

In other news, today we planted potatoes! Yukon gold, red and sweet potatoes.


We used a similar method as we did last year:
1. Cut off portions of the potato with several "eye sprouts",
2. Plant the potato chunks with the "eye sprouts" facing up
3. Cover with dirt and mulch.

Our potatoes did well last year so I'm hoping we are just as successful this year - particularly with those sweets!

Up next:
1. More planting (flowers, herbs and beans)
2. Figure out our watering system