Daily Archives: June 3, 2021

We Survived Another Season In The Dirt!

Planting this year was relentless.  Going from constructing two major fences to planting in the 50 raised beds was seriously taking its toll on me.  I haven’t had a rest in several months.  I was starting to wonder when this old ass was gonna simply collapse.  Yesterday was brutal.  Got the drip irrigation mostly up and running.  However, as usual, what should have only taken a few hours, took all day.  As with anything, including people, it is possible at times to start to hate what you want and love in your life.  This planting season got me there. Now that it is done, I sit here on the porch looking at it all and think, “You know, this place is pretty neat when the Demons and Devil Sprites aren’t rending me with anal probes.” I think we will survive another season.

My newest addition to the T-Shirt collection. Why? Because we are a hyper-sensitive, overly self-entitled bunch of whiny babies.
Sitting on the porch admiring a job well done!

The Asparagus has become a forest. We are interplanting a row of Strawberries between the two Asparagus rows. Hopefully, this will create a bit of shade for them. Our sun is brutal.
This year we are trying to grow a bunch of food for our pigs. This bed is all Turnips and Beets (blech)
This year our spring has been very wet. Not complaining, especially since it wasn’t hail. However, the weeds and grass around the beds have gone pretty nuts.
As usual, the Garlic has been stellar. We have also been very pleased how the herb garden has over wintered.
It always feels like the end is near when the greenhouse gets filled in.
The plants look pretty happy.
Mission Control: “Drip Irrigation?” “Check, Go Flight.”
And, of course, the key ingredient to growing out here on the Plains (except for copious amounts of water), the shade cloth.

The last project in the garden will be to get the new Blackberry hedge planted. We got the holes drilled for the plants this past weekend. We still need to run the water lines to them and then mix soil and compost together to put into the holes so that we can plant the bushes into them. The fun part of having this much space to grow things is that we can try out new things. If it all fails, it won’t affect our food for the year because it can be grown in other spaces. This year we are attempting to grow Peanuts, the Blackberry bushes, and intercropping the Strawberries with the Asparagus. It is all just one grand adventure; my kind of adventure in that I can do it all right here. Frodo can go to Mordor…. I prefer just staying put.