Playing catch up is what we are up to……. catching this new property up to where the old property was at, not wanting to miss a beat.  We have had a wonderful harvest, at the last place, and if we play our cards right,….. we might…. just might… just have something similar, SMALLER, but similar next year…. We just cannot imagine a summer without raspberries.

So I started out with a hoe, and other simple implements preparing the beds for planting garlic.   LOTSA work.  Lotsa ROCKS….  I had this idea that we invite the rockhounding club out to look for rocks, show them all the wonderful rocks we have found here and … feel free to take any home with you………

BUT… Ken had a better idea.  THIS wonderful blue thing is “Ken’s Idea”

We started looking around at what “real” farmers were using, and thinking how much more we could grow without further impairing our precious backs…..(we ARE going to need them in the future)

WOW, what a difference it makes with the Bates project, MACHINE AGE……… We now have a tractor!  So we are now like………

 

“Green Acres is the place to be.
Farm livin’ is the life for me.
Land spreadin’ out so far and wide
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside. ”

 

‘

 

So we are now able to do a rough…. roughing up of the earth to make it softer, then we have the loan of this incredible Garlic barrel planter, that friends of ours have fashioned to make the indentations in the “soft ground” at just the right distances.  Scary tool!

 

The holes look something like this (until Tucker walks all over them) 

So the deal is, you just put the garlic cloves into these holes and cover them over. (making sure that the pointy side is up)

And that is that!   …..our soil looks pretty good, but it is totally without any organic component, so we have had a large load of “hog fuel” delivered.  Hog fuel is basically leftovers at the “mill” of SPF  spruce, pine, fir.

Here is the garden planted, 4 long rows of garlic, 4500, garlic.   4 Fruit trees on the right, and black berries and raspberries up along the bank where you cannot see.

and from the other side, a little while later…

I feel so much better that the earth is covered….no longer naked.

Ready to persevere the cold winter.

We hope so.

Much love to all Janet Ken and Tucker