Our three gardens

It’s been a few days since I last posted. There’s not been a lack of things to do, and I have still been accomplishing much. Once the rain stopped, we got busy in the garden. We set out 50# of seed potatoes, 32 pounds of onion sets, 150 tomato plants, nearly 300 sweet potato plants, a few cabbage and broccoli plants, and about three dozen eggplants. We’ve also planted peanuts, dried beans, green beans, sweet corn, pop corn, squash, melons, okra, and cucumbers. I’ll be planting some more sweet corn and green beans soon.

We’re using three different garden areas this year, more than we’ve utilized in the past. One has the onions, potatoes, tomatoes, and sweet corn in it at the present time. Another has the sweet potatoes and some watermelon. We’ll probably put the next planting of sweet corn in this garden since there is still room for it. The other, and largest, garden has several types of melons, green beans, dried beans, and peanuts in it.

The children have been helping with taking care of the garden. Each year as they grow they are more able to contribute to our food production. My boys have really been helpful this year with planting and weeding. I try to not overwhelm them with too much at a time, and they’ve really been doing a good job and with a good attitude.

I think it’s important for children to grow up with responsibilities and learning to work. There are so many things that they can do to contribute to their family, and there are so many valuable things to be learned through the process. Too many children, I’m afraid, are not expected to contribute to their families in meaningful ways. When I was growing up, my family had a very limited income, and our gardens provided a good deal of our food. Each of us was expected and required to participate in the growing, maintenance, harvesting, and preserving of food. I didn’t always appreciate it at the time, but I certainly do now.

One of the challenges we’ve faced with the gardens during the last couple of weeks is the deer. They decided that we’re growing food for them. They’ve eaten on our peas, beans, beets, chard, and lettuce. They basically destroyed the beets and chard – I guess they tasted good to them. After they’d eaten on the beans which were just starting to blossom, I put up some deer deterrent: baling twine. I’ve been told that deer don’t like the smell of baling twine, and three years ago we put up a fence of it around our garden because of the deer, and it kept them out of it.

After I fenced off the beans with baling twine, the deer decided to eat some of the younger beans. These deer appear to be very hungry based upon how they’ve been eating. So, the boys and I put up a perimeter fence around the bean garden using 10’ poles driven into the ground and four strands of baling twine. We also tied rectangles of aluminum flashing onto each pole to move with the wind and create noise. So far, the deer haven’t been back in the garden, but it’s only been a couple of days. I’m hopeful it will keep them out for most of the growing season.

Yesterday, Malchiah and I worked on getting some of our tomatoes staked up. Last year I used livestock panels in an A-frame configuration – two panels on either side of the row tied together at the top. This year my rows are 30 feet long which requires four panels per row. I have 12 panels and didn’t want to spend the money to buy more. So, to be able to cover more rows (we have 8 rows of tomatoes), I changed the method for this year.

We started with three rows yesterday. I set some cedar posts at the ends of the rows and one post in the middle of each row. Then, we hung two panels between the posts right above the tomato plants. The panels are about 9 inches off the ground. I tied the larger plants to the bottom of the panels and wove their branches them. As the plants grow, we’ll weave them through the panels to the top, or as tall as the plants grow. We’ll tie them to the panels as necessary. It takes more work to set posts in the ground, but this way we have enough panels for six rows. I’ll stake up the other two rows differently.

We’ve been enjoying fresh blueberries and black raspberries this week. Soon, it’ll be time to pick blackberries. We usually pick and preserve as many blackberries as we can. Last year we picked around 20 gallons. We’re planning on doing the same this year.

I’ve been teaching two sections of my class this summer. There’s one more week to go in the session. It’s been taking a lot of time, but it’s worth it. My objective is to encourage the students to question the institution of school by considering some of its harmful effects and how it is not designed to promote learning/education as they assume. As one of the authors they read says, “School makes children stupid.” I enjoy the class, but it’ll be nice to be able to focus and devote my time to projects (like finishing our house) here on the farm.

Hunting with my boys

We had two weeks of rifle season here in November. I did not see any deer. Dad saw some three different times, but, alas, he didn’t harvest any of them. Even though we didn’t get any deer (actually, I got a small one with the van the week before rifle season), it was still enjoyable to spend several hours in the woods or in the deer blind.

The boys wanted to go hunting with me. So, one morning I woke Malchiah up at 5:00am to go out with me. We walked to the blind in the dark and got situated. Once in place, the idea is to sit still without making noise while watching for deer to come by. Sitting still and quiet for 2.5 hours for a six year old is a pretty big task. Malchiah did admirably well, but he grew bored after the first hour. He laid down on the ground and played with a piece of wire. He did perk up and get excited when a flock of turkeys crossed the creek and began working their way across the field. He encouraged me to shoot them, but I explained that it wasn’t turkey season and that a rifle isn’t the best gun to use for shooting a turkey. After the turkeys went into the woods, we headed back to the house.

Ramiah went out with me that afternoon. Perhaps, sitting still and quiet for that length of time is easier for an eight year old, but he still was fidgety at times. Still, no deer came by during our time in the blind that afternoon. No turkeys either. Ramiah went with me one more afternoon during muzzleloader season. No deer then, either. But, we watched two coyotes walk across the field.

Venison from the deer we shoot and ones that neighbors give to us is the primary meat we eat during the year. This year we have a steer to process, so the limited amount of venison won’t be a problem.

Someday I expect the boys will do much of the hunting to bring home meat for the family.

Early morning frost, birds, & a skunk

It was a beautiful morning. A clear sky with a bright sun rising above the horizon. I was a little late setting out to do my chores, but the beauty of the beginning day prompted me to take my camera with me in the hopes of capturing some good shots.












There was a heavy frost on everything in the bottom, the result of moist air and below-freezing temperatures. When you view a frosted blade of grass closely, you discover that the frost is made up of very small ice crystals. These crystals catch the light of the sun and sparkle.

It was fun trying to capture the beauty of the morning and the little intricacies that exist all around us. I’m still learning how to do it well, but it’s a fun process. 

The birds were happily flitting about this morning, too. We have a variety of different types around here. Many times when I’ve been out early of a morning during hunting season, I’ve noticed that they all seem to wake up about the same time. With the 10x optical zoom on my camera and the 5x digital zoom, I was able to get close enough to snap some bird photos. One of them was a pileated woodpecker. They make a lot of noise as they fly from tree to tree. They’re good-sized birds.

Later in the morning after breakfast, Danny came over and asked if I would look at something. He said it was an animal he caught in a trap, and he wanted to know what it was. He said it was black with a white spot on its head. I thought skunk. That’s what it was. We let it go, successfully avoiding being sprayed. The little guy didn’t seem too concerned about us and gladly trotted away.

[I used Windows Live Writer to compose this blog post. This is a new tool for me – I just downloaded it today. It handles photos quite well, but there are some quirks in text editing which I hope to figure out as I use it more.]