All week I have been thinking about the garden: trying to organize help for Sunday morning/afternoon, I was worried about soil, I was looking for a truck, trying to find a wheelbarrow and fretting about the rain forecast. It was exhausting, trying to deal with the day-to-day functions of life, supporting family and friends in their journey of life. The plan was simple (ha!) find a truck, drive to the soil depot (wholesale), pick up enough soil to re-soil the entire garden, plant the rest of the three sisters: bean and squash, put up tomato. Psssh....
What actually happened...
The Back-up Plan:
Sunday turned out to be another long day full of work! I woke up to the sound of thunder and rain and was worried I wouldn't be able to get in the garden. Turns out the soil depot was a little bit of a bust: they had no hours on the site/brochure, 3 different phone numbers no one would answer and were closed on Sunday! I blame it on hippies, gotta get organized... So we stuck to our back up plan: ditch all the fancy stuff, hit up a regular store to get the soil we needed and just do what we could around the rain, specifically plant the other two sisters, the clock is ticking and we are in a bit of a crunch!
Surveying:
When I arrived to the garden I was met with drizzle and clearing skies, I quickly surveyed the garden to find: fallen corn stalks, BUGS (yuck!), damaged onions and blooming sunflowers and tomatoes! We made a mental note to invest in some reinforcements and got ready for the store.
Store:
One of the things we learned last week was that we needed a stronger base for our tall crop. Since our plan to go to the soil dump went awry, we went to the store consulted a nice gentleman named Huellete Packard (he joked and said like Hewlett Packard minus the money- ha! he was nice), we picked out an organic compost soil, and he laughed when we declined Miracle Gro because we don't trust what they put in their soil. While walking around we picked out stuff for ourselves, debated bird feeding stuff, admired beautiful garden decor talked ourselves out of some fancy garden tools, and got talked out of a wheelbarrow by a passing gentleman. After about an hour, we walked out with 5 bags of organic compost soil, some sticks to support our fallen stalks and a bell made of bird feed.
The work:
- Weeding/Mending - I will be honest, this is NOT my favorite part to do, but I do recognize that it needs to be done on the regular. It was a lot easier since we did heavy duty weeding last week, but the sun did beam down pretty hard, however it did even out my tan :D There were 8 different plants that had fallen, we were lucky to have purchased a few extra support sticks because it was a bit hard to tell from first seeing the crops.
- We did note that we need to probably invest in bamboo sticks to help the corn, we had to use bamboo before, and we like it because its natural and its tall enough to hold the corn high. In addition to the new soil, we are sure this will be better.
- Soil - It was nice to place a new base around each stalk/crop. It looked so healthy. Hopefully it can provide some of the nutrients we need! The crops are looking healthier and are attracting more pests which is a good and bad sign. (see below)
- Seeds & Planting - YAY!!!! Frijoles (beans) y calabacitas (squash). I am a major frijolera (bean eater) I think they are the best component for a meal and or snack, so I am excited to harvest these! We have talked about the different types of seeds we got in the past, but just to recap we have Hopi Pinto beans, Mexican Calabacitas (MexCal) and Yellow Crooknecks (YellowCrooks) [please see slide below for preview]. I love touching and seeing seeds. They really amaze me. After figuring out we had less Mex.Cal than YellowCrooks and doing some quick math we decided to plant this way:
- 2 small rows with the Mex.Cal. and beans each stalk (or set of stalks-since more than one have 2 to 3 stalks in one place.)
- each set had 4 pozos (holes) for one bean seed and 2 pozos for one MexCal seed
- and the rest of the rows (other 5) with YellowCrooks and beans.
- each set had 4 pozos for one bean seed and 2 pozos for one YellowCrooks
- Pests - uuuuughhh!!!! Peee-yeeeeewwww Stink bugs are invading! We haven't figured out a natural cure for this yet, but we are researching, so far I learned they are originally from Asia. More info to come.
- Compost- We are working on this! I have some editions being stored right now... but I will say its stinky... lol
So much to say, but I will save it for another day. Random thoughts:
- Bamboo
- Love
- Weed
- Clean Amaranth Bed
- Soil Amaranth Bed
- Lay our usual pest solution, we should give that solution a name...
- Sign
- Nails
- Compost
EXTRA EXTRA: Read all about it!!
Flowers blooming & other pics
Friday night pics 05.31.13
Thank You's for the week:
Mr. Huellete Packard, for being helpful and cheery. To the Barrio for allowing us to borrow a grocery basket randomly stored on the side of the road. It came in handy transporting all that soil. Hahaha, that provided many giggles to start us off! And to my sister, Dee, thank you for opening the space and for being dedicated with me as we continually move forward. We're doing the damn thing and its so hard for me not to be emotional in the palabra, but I am so happy to be a part of this with you. Peace and Love in the struggle,
Gritona
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