Geez... Farming is Hard Work!

Hey everyone, just posting an update for the first real planting week. The weather has been soooo incredible. Today I had a hard time concentrating on gardening. But I had to keep focused, otherwise it's real easy to suddenly find yourself late in the season with empty beds.

So my first project today was to get the rest of my potatoes in the new beds we made this winter. The potatoes I planted today were a Yukon Gold variety.

One thing I do that I don't think a lot of people do is soak the seed potatoes in a sulfur/pyrethrin solution before planting. This helps to prevent scab and fungal infections as well as insect damage.

The neat thing about taters is they can grow in beds that aren't done composting, which is the case with all of my beds I will be using for the potatoes. Here you can see the soil is still largely manure and straw combined with compost and sand and lots of char.

I buried the potatoes in a trench about 8 inches deep, and covered them with 4-6 inches of soil. Once the shoots appear and have several leaves, I'll fill in the rest of the ditch. This is called "hilling" and is important to make sure the potatoes don't grow out of the mound.

My next project was to work on the frog pond. I bought a pond liner, built up the sides and put a drain in using a cinder block covered with screen. I planted lilies all around the pond and set water plants in the shallow end. I also put a small log in the water for animals to use for escaping in case they fall in.

I then moved about a ton of rock from the pasture and surrounding woods and lined the top of the pond and the downhill side to prevent erosion. I still have to put the wood chips down, but I got tired by the time I had put down the weed block around the outside. I'll upload a pic when it's done, but I think it looks pretty good already. What do you think?

The lilies are gorgeous. They are a mix of yellows and peaches and orange. I also have turks cap lillies interplanted. These with the yellow Iris of the pond plants should be stunning. Once these are done blooming, the floating water iris will produce small beautiful purple flowers. The frogs owe me...

The last project was easier. I have been pondering how I was going to set up my pea trellises. I came across a website that showed a simple and attractive solution.

I cut branches and small trees to about 7 feet in height, and simply stuck them in the ground in the pea bed. I will have to anchor them with twine and stakes to prevent them from falling over in high winds, which we get a lot through this particular area of the property, but once the peas grow up the trees and branches it is going to be quite lovely.

The thing I like about this solution is the organic look. It looks like we have small fruit trees in the garden while bare, and will look totally natural once the vines cover the branches. It also takes up less room than a traditional trellis.

The bonus is that once they are all used up they can go right into the compost pile.

OK, that's it for now. I'm bushed!