The Weekly Digs #60
Work continued on the farm with getting more fruit trees into the ground. This week we planted the bare root pear trees, pecan trees, and 9 elderberry bushes.
I was also excited to see that the four year old apple trees we transplanted have perked up a bit and look better. Cameron, ever the optimist, was right again. The trees will be fine! Or at least so far they are. 🙂
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Next up is figuring out the vegetable garden. We have our work cut out for us! As we were digging in the soil on the north end of the property where the garden will be, the dirt is almost completely clay. The kids were having fun rolling balls made of clay soil and joking about making clay pots out of it.
Even though the soil is so full of clay, that portion of the property has hardly any rocks which is amazing. Where we dug for our fruit trees it was filled with rocks. Yet less than a quarter mile away, it is practically rock-free. Arkansas is full of surprises.
I purchased a couple big silage tarps to cover the soil for three weeks before we put in the vegetable garden. Hopefully it will kill or at least weaken some of the grass in preparation for the garden. Gardening on this large of a scale is completely different than everything I have done so far in a home garden setting.
It’s different because it’s not economical to purchase a bunch of soil amendments like we have in the past. It also seems like we are going to need more tools than just shovels and a pick axe if we want to get the garden prepped and planted in the next month.
We have been researching walk-behind tractors like Market Gardener JM Fortier uses. The walk-behind tractor would be used to form raised garden beds and prep the soil for planting.
Cameron found a vintage used walking tractor for sale that should fit the bill. We are hopeful it will work for our purposes but if for some reason it doesn’t- we figure we can sell it for a similar price next year.
Progress in the current garden:
- Planted more potatoes. White kennebec and Yukon Gold
- Started transplanting onions into the ground. Still more to do on this.
- Transplanted kale and cabbage to the garden.
Indoor planting:
- Sowed more zinnias. Purple prince and Senorita
- Started Cinnamon basil and Genovese Basil
There is about a week lag between what is happening in the videos and the time I am able to edit and post them. So everything in the video below is what happened in Weekly Digs #59.
https://youtu.be/5_cLegH43Yohttps://youtu.be/nomZwaVFktQ
