Raised Bed

Started a raised bed near the house for greens and herbs.

Rather than bring in soil from the outside it will be built progressively from lawn matter with the walls raised to match.

This bed was seeded with lavender, chard, kale, spinach, and lettuce.  However I realized after seeding that due to how close it is to the black walnut tree, seen here by the shade, some of these plants will likely not produce.  I'm considering building a raised bed on the patio concrete for zone 1 greens that are juglone intolerant.

First Sow

I haven't bought my seed yet so I'm using up leftover seed from last season.  Don't know if it will still be good or not but we'll see.  Broadcast the seed into the first annual bed.

AWAKE!

Trying something new against the deer.

This is a string fence made from sisal rope nailed to trees where the woods meet the yard.  There are still openings to allow the deer to go around, but this cuts off where their trail enters and directly crosses the beds.  I opted for sisal rope as there is no concern with plastics and it can be used to guide a living fence and then abandoned.

Hibernation

The deer were devastating, but lessons learned.

The best defense is a good... defense.

Been a while since my last entry.  It's been so hot that it's tough to get anything to sprout.  The cabbage bolted so I cut it all down and got a few small heads out of it.  It shall be sauerkraut soon!  The chard is growing strong and allowing for a large harvest each week.  The biggest recent development is the deer...

Yup, they found the potatoes.  The damage wasn't too extensive with only a couple plants stripped of foliage.  I added some fencing at deer-level to limit their access while still allowing me to reach under for maintenance.

They found the blueberries too, so they've received the dome.

I had left the cover off the sweet potatoes to let them get a good soaking of rain one day.  This was a mistake.  The deer promptly ate a nice section while I was away.  The rest of the row however is still doing well and should provide a good crop.

But there is a problem.  The area the deer hit also seems to be suffering from some sort of infection.  I haven't yet been able to identify what it is.  The leaves are turning completely black and dying off.  I've found a couple bacterial infections that come close to the description, but I'm not certain yet.

Hopefully it doesn't spread.

The sweet potatoes also have a companion now.

I dropped a yellow squash seed that had survived winter in the compost bin.  It managed to sprout in the walkway so I just let it go.  Pretty strong little plant so I'll be keeping its seed later.

Finally, some radishes have sprouted.

Still no sign of the parsnips or chives though.  The heat is proving to be a barrier in getting things to come up.  I'm probably going to have to get some peppers started indoors if I want to have any before the end of the season.

For now though I'm just glad that my efforts at controlling the deer, when actually applied, are proving successful.

Got crabgrass?

Things are progressing this season.  It got hot and dry quick but fortunately I haven't needed to water very much.

The potatoes are coming along strong, growing very fast and might need one more layer of straw.

The second row with the lettuce, spinach, and carrots has turned into more of a crabgrass farm.  I didn't do any weeding to allow for the seed to establish, but the crabgrass just took over.  There's still a scattering of carrots so I'm going to go through and pull out all the grass by hand.

The swiss chard and cabbage are growing well.  Some of the chard might be ready to eat!

The sweet potatoes are in.  To protect them from deer they're going to remain under the row cover for the entire season.  It should be light enough but if not I'll try a different cover.

The onions from last season have gone to seed.  They look almost alien, kinda cool.  Into the compost bin they go!

I'm going to have to put fresh paper down and mulch the paths again.  There's one particular weed I have yet to identify that is very persistent.  It apparently has a deep taproot that no matter how much of it I manage to remove, enough remains for it to regrow.  I've wasted too much time and energy digging them out as they can push their way through the straw, but hopefully some fresh paper will be enough to stop them for a while.

This spud's for YOU!

The potatoes are sprouting spudtacularly.

Blueberry blossoms!

And baby blueberries!!

I think I need to erect deer fencing over the blueberries before they're noticed.

The onions from last season are still going, and flowering.  I've pulled up a couple and they have small but seemingly growing bulbs.  Still not completely sure what they're going to do.

Lettuce!  There's been a scattering of lettuce sprouts, some carrots, and a few spinach.  Wherever things still have yet to come up over the next week or so I'm going to go ahead and plant radishes and parsnips.

Swiss chard and cabbage goin strong!  Pulled the mulch back over and with the rains they really took off.

Next weekend I plan on picking up the sweet potato slips to fill in the third row.