Homesteading: A Woman's Journey

Finally.....the sun

We are finally having sunny days.  What a blessing!  While we have enjoyed having the much needed rain to bring us out of our drought, it has also brought alot of flooding and other problems. 

I lost quite alot of my garden over the past weeks of rain.  Seeds planted in my fall garden were drowned and many plants in my summer garden struggled with the excess water.  I do have a few varieties that are doing well though, so I am blessed to have them.  Ironically, the plants that survived are the same ones that would be pricey to purchase at the store.  The cheaper veggies are the ones that we lost.

I am already planning out next year's gardens.  Now that I have seen how well this weed barrier sheeting is (no weeds at all, even with all the rains), I plan to triple the size of the garden next year.  I will be planting some of the varieties in boxes, the rest will be in the traditional rows.  I love the main garden plot that I have right now.  The young adults from our church had come to our home last fall and helped us with clearing alot of brush and other outdoor work.  One of the projects that they did was to build a fenced garden area for me to prevent the armadillos & rabbits from getting in there and damaging my garden as the critters had done the previous season.  They cemented small posts into the ground and then wrapped poultry fencing up & over the posts to form the fencing sides.  It is about 1.5 ft. tall and provided just enough protection to keep the critters out.  Joe and I laid out the weed barrier sheeting after tilling the soil.  The weeds never grew!  What a blessing it has been!  The only caution is that we had to mulch around the plants to prevent the sun's heat from burning the roots. 

Next year, I will have at least 3 large garden areas.  One will be nothing but the varieties that need alot of space - squash, cucumbers, pumpkin, melons, etc.  A second area will be the things that need to be on a trellis or fence and the bush-type plants - tomatoes, beans, peas, eggplant, etc.  The third garden area will be all the root crops - potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, beets, etc.  There will also be a separate herb garden.  I learned this year that with all the rain, I need to plant the seeds indoors and transplant eveyrthing.  Only exception being the root crops.  Beets, carrots, onions and garlic can be planted in the raised boxes as this will prevent the plants from being drowned.  The boxes have weed barrier sheeting or some other very porous fabric in the bottom to hold the soil in, yet allow for good drainage. 

The potatoes & sweet potatoes will be planted above ground.  It is very simple.  You make a series of cylinders from 4 ft. tall fencing.  I usually make the cylinders about the diameter of a car tire.  I have rows of these cylinders.  In the bottom of each, you place some weed barrier sheeting, with the sheeting also going up the sides partway.  This both holds in the soil, prevents weeds, and also lets the soil get plenty of drainage.  Place a good soil mix with compost in the bottom of the cylinders,  You only need about 4-6 inches of it to start out.  Basically enough to give the tuber sets a good start.  Then, as they grow through the top of the soil, you add more soil or hay.  I usually have soil until I reach about 1/3 the height of the cylinder to insure that the tubers are getting enough nutrients.  The rest of the cylinder is filled with hay.  Add more weed barrier to the inside of the cylinder as you need to to prevent the soil/hay from falling out.  This also prevents the tubers from growing out the sides.  You want to keep them growing vertical so that you will get more tubers in your harvest.  I keep adding hay until the plants reach the top of the fencing.  In the fall, I simply open up the fencing cylinder and knock over the mound of hay & soil to harvest the potatoes.  I have always had success with this method, no matter what the climate.  The main thing is that you have to make sure that they get plenty of water.  Also, if you plant the tuber sets early, have some large clear plastic trash bags around.  These can be placed over the top of the cylinders in the early spring to prevent frost.

You can also use this method with a shorter fencing to grow tomatoes.  One year, I grew tomatoes in a half-barrel planter.  I filled the planter with a good soil mix with gravel in the bottom for drainage.  I then planted 3 tomato plants in the planter and placed a 3 foot tall cylinder of fencing around it to use as a cage.  The bottom half of the fencing was lined with black plastic trash bags.  As the plants grew, I added more soil.  I had a clear trash bag over the top to provide extra protection and warmth whenever needed.  The fencing that I used had openings in it that were large enough that I could reach through it to harvest the tomatoes as they became ripe.  Living in Montana at that time, I was able to grow the tomatoes all season and not lose any to frost as many of our neighbors had.  My plants grew taller than the fencing and produced very heavily because of the good & strong roots they had developed.  When I pulled up the plants at the end of the season, the roots were nearly 2.5 foot long!