The power of garlic against deer

 

As this year begins to wrap up, I want to share a small victory with you. Deer have destroyed my garden for the most of the growing season but I have two food crops that have proven to be deer resistant. Please give to a warm welcome to garlic and the distantly related elephant garlic. As you can see, both appear to be untouched unlike the winter wheat to the right of them that has been decimated. While I won't be able to feed myself on just garlic, it will be a great addition to anything I grow in the new year that survives the deer onslaught.

Planting Potatoes and Website Update

     Hi everyone. I have a gardening update and a couple of important announcements for you today. We finally got the no dig potatoes out. We placed at least five varieties on ground that had been covered with cardboard. We then gave them some compost and covered it all with straw and cut grass.
     The first big bit of news is we had a successful trial launch of our little seed business. Thank you to everyone who purchased our seeds. We are now temporarily sold out but will have plenty more seed in about a month.
     That leads me to the second bit of news.While we are waiting for the seed in the fields to mature, we are going to do a website redesign. The main change is going to be individual product pages that will feature prominently toward the top of the home page. Several other tweaks will be made to the features and appearance of pernies.com. We'll see you next time!

Near Record Cold Weather

     It's always important for gardeners to pay close attention to the weather and also to have a moderate amount of patience. As much as I wanted to put out our warm season crops I knew I needed to wait until all chances of frost had passed.  For us in zone 6b, that was suppose to be the first Saturday of May. As the day approached, the local meteorologist began to warn that the unusual cool temperatures we were experiencing were going to get even colder. Sure enough, they are now predicting we will get at least frost and maybe even a freeze. The people who put out tender plants in their garden will lose them all.
     While I was smart enough to wait, I'm still faced with a problem. This late frost or freeze has effectively shortened the warm crop growing season. My peanut plants may not have time to make peanuts. My corn, millet and sorghum plants could have reduced yield because they will get planted late. Thankfully, I have a solution. Buckwheat is warm season pseudo-cereal that has a fast time to maturity. Assuming there are no "acts of god" there is a very good chance for buckwheat to return a high yield when planted late in the season. Many thanks to High Mowing Organic Seeds for getting my order to me quickly.

You Can Never Have Enough Compost

     Hi everyone! We are just about to enter our frost-free growing season here in zone 6b which means I need every bit of compost that I have. No dig has been the best way I have found to garden so far but compost and is always the limiting factor. Last year we had just enough for one long row and the difference it made in that row was impressive. This year we have at least twice as much compost but it's still not enough. The plan is to put down three inches of compost as far as we can and plant seeds into just those places. All other sections of the garden will get heavy cardboard mulch that should give us areas to garden later in late summer to early fall.

Happy (Late) Earth Day!

     Nature has been busy here on our little slice of heaven even if I haven't. I'm out of the foot cast but now I'm having to wear a protective boot so work has been slow going for me. Our lonely apple tree is in full bloom and some turkeys made an uncommon appearance at our place. In the garden our pea trails have already provided valuable data. The Little Marvel peas are doing great while the Green Arrow variety are having difficulty germinating. Even the Alaska peas that were planted later than the Green Arrow are germinating better. While harvesting some spinach planted last year, we found a huge spinach plant that caught our attention.
     Even though Corvid-19 seems to be overshadowing everything right now, we need to remember what Earth Day is all about. Everything going on means nothing if we don't have a world to live on. This is our one and only home and we need to give this planet the care and respect it deserves. I hope we learn some valuable lessons from this epidemic about how to better care for not only each other but for the environment as well.

Working Outdoors

The work getting done outside has greatly slowed due to me having an injury. A bone broke in my foot more than month ago and I've been in a cast ever since. However, this will change soon because the cast is going to be removed in two days. After I get used to walking in a protective boot, I should be able to start going outside farther than my back porch. Thanks to my wonderful wife for planting the vegetable section of our garden.
I'll give you an update on the vegetable garden. The barley and peas love this cool weather and are coming along very well. The radishes and kale seem to be doing just fine also. The spinach is less noticeable but it's definitely germinating as well. We also put out corn salad which is very hard to spot without searching for it. I hope to mow the little field below our house and get plenty of barley and orchard grass seed sown.

Making Magic Happen

Happy April to everyone! We've been keeping ourselves busy at home while corona virus is continuing to spread in the United States. We have filled the vegetable garden with some of our favorite plants and are looking forward to offering far more seeds after harvest. In other news, Pernie is doing great. Here's a picture of her enjoying some orchard grass grown right here at home.