After the devastation caused by the slugs, it was time for a garden day. The soil temperature has been hovering between 65 and 70 degrees, and the volunteer squashes have begun popping up where the chickens missed the seeds over the winter (a sure sign that it is warm enough to germinate most seeds).
The first step was to rehab the irrigation system. When Daddy was trying to repair the riser that broke in the big freeze, he ended up ripping the thin-wall poly pipe that feeds it. We bought the components to do a patch job, but he wasn’t looking forward to it. It would require a lot of digging, and re-arranging things, and might end up not working in the end… Then, he realized that he could just bypass that part of the system by attaching a garden hose from the yard hydrant to the top of the timer.
It’s not fixed, but it will last the summer and put off the need for repairs until we have time (hahaha!) to do it right, replacing the whole system with pex, of which we have quite a bit to spare. Moral of this story: Don’t buy thin-wall poly pipe.
First thing we put in was corn. We put in two varieties. The first is a blue sweet corn that is supposed to dry well and grind into a sweet corn meal. The second was a good old standby bicolor sweet corn. We planted about 36 row feet of the blue corn (3 x 12′ rows spaced one foot apart) and 9 row feet of the bicolor (3 x 3′ rows spaced one foot apart). The reason for this arrangement is so that we can get all of our grinding corn ripened by early August (hopefully) while there is still some good drying weather, and then we will plant the sweet corn for eating fresh in 9 square foot blocks every two weeks or so until mid June. Ideally this will give us successive rounds of sweet corn to eat until September. We will see.
Next, two varieties of pole bean. The bulk of the planting is blue lake, a reliable standby since Ryan and Kathleen were kids. Probably since Deedee and Papa were kids. The second is a variety of French bean that have purple pods. This was Uncle’s idea, because he says the purple pods are easier to pick.
Then 24 feet of canellini beans (semi bush). These are a favorite for minestrone, but we have not grown them successfully yet. We tried planting them in straw bales, and they did absolutely nothing. So we are trying them in dirt this year to see what happens.
Seppi started out strong, but got tired of it pretty quick, so Ellie finished planting the beans. She is a very methodical little person, and gardening appeals to her.
Add some sprinkler hoses and voila! Grow little beans! Grow!
Winnie is pretty sure she’s got this irrigation thing on lock.
After lunch and nap, we set up more irrigation, and…
Winnie got a ride in the kids’ new wheelbarrow.
Just the right size.
Corn, buckwheat and sunflowers getting a drink.
After supper Evie and Daddy replanted all the cucurbits that the slugs destroyed. This puts us a few weeks behind, but it looks like it is likely to be a hot, dry summer so hopefully they will sprout quickly and make up for lost time.
Next up, beets, carrots, onions (lost track of time for those, they should have been started weeks and weeks ago, but oh well.)
Little Farm in the Big City 