Ready to plant.....

Today was a beautiful dyay in the low 80s and boy have i got the garden fever. I would probably plant this weekend but between our annual National Cornbread Festival and The Best race of the year (Talladega) I guess ill wait until next weekend. I have ten of my bales ready to plant in aand will fill them up with squash as they need to be planted. I included a few pics of my zucchaini and strait neck yellow. The remaining twenty bales will house two Brandywines or Brandyboys each. I will post next week after bales are planted. I plan also next weekend getting started planting in the ground. I need to assemble my cattle panel archs for pole beans and get bush beans in the ground. See ya next week...Gizzard

GOT ER DUN

My neighbor Ernest came down yesterday and plowed my garden for me. It has been several years since i have plowed, just been having it tilled. Next weekend I hope to till it and start my planting the first week of May. I love spring my pasture is greened out, flowers, redbuds and dogwoods are blooming, and I've got the garden fever. Heres a few pictures from around the farm..

Seedlings looking better in April...

After 3 weeks under the lights my plants have took off. They look healthy and happy and will be ready to plant in a few weeks. These are a few of my Maters including Brandywine, Brandy Boy, Cherokee purple, Aunt Ginnys Purple, KBX, KBX Heart, Kellogs Breakfast, Boxcar Willie, Black Cherry, and Celeberties. Also posted are some of my Crimson Spineless Okra..

March 2008 Seedlings

This is an adventure for me as this is a year of firsts around the farm. This is my first attempt at any sort of blog and the first year I've started my beloved tomatos from seed. I have close to 200 plants at various sizes and have learned alot about seed starting already. I will still have to buy 100 or so tomato plants but next year I plan to start all my plants. My squash and okra plants are also up and doing great. My garden spot on the other side of the creek are calling to the plants to come over for the dance, but after losing 200 plants to a late hard freeze last year im going to wait until the first weekend of May. I have over the years noticed that plants planted in early May produce tomatos at the same time as plants planted two or three weeks before. My neighbor and friend Mr. Haskew that lives up the road helped me out today by spreading a ton of lime on top of my leave and horse manure covered garden and I hope to plow it in this weekend. Another first this year is a new kind of gardening I have put much thought and research into, and that is the little known art of strawbale gardening. I hope to plant in 40 or fifty bales this year which will be in addition to my regular garden. The reason for this blog is to start at the beginning of this year and run from seedlings to market and share my story with others. So with all that said here we gooooo. These first pictures are of newly sprouted seedlings in March then pictures of some of the same seedlings in April.

April

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