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Well, today was a little sad. We had one rooster who took it into his head to attack the boys with his spurs, so we had to put him down this morning. Still have three roosters left, but this one was a twin with his brother that we hatched out from the egg. My neighbor is taking the feathers for fly tie fishing. The boys are all right, with some good soap and water and a little bactroban they should heal up pretty quickly, they just a had a couple of scratches. I don't take chances with my children and that's why the rooster had a quick exit. We built a raised bed for my strawberry plants this year. It's five feet wide by 12 feet long and 12" high. You only need three boards for this (if your going organic use untreated wood). We put 2x2 inside the corners to strengthen the box and help it last longer, and put two metal braces on the outside of each corner. We filled the bottom two inches with cow manure, the next two-three inches with compost, and the rest with humus/peat mixture. If your going to do this it's a good idea to lay down landscape fabric/ or several thicknesses of newspaper underneath to keep the weeds from growing through your soil. Today I planted 17 more strawberry plants, we had already planted about twice that. Ozark Beauty, Sequoia, and Tennesse Beauty are the three types we planted this year. I'm planning on letting them spread and and root more plants for next year. I put some marigolds at each end of the bed and also put thyme, lemon balm and borage in with the strawberrries. Borage is supposed to be a good companion plant for strawberries. Planted a couple dozen tomato plants; some pepper plants in yellow, red and orange; and a few basil plants. This year we are going to do more of the companion planting system and see how that works out for us. I plant in wide rows using John Jeavons intensive growing methods (french bio-intensive planting). This works well in Georgia to keep the plant roots cool, weeds down, and water directly where you need it. It also saves a lot of garden space. First we grew clover on the garden area over the fall. Then we 'tilled in the clover; spread cow manure, alfalfa meal, cottonseed meal, and lime over the bed and tilled everything in. Then we laid landscaping fabric over the top of the bed. The beds are four feet wide by about 75 feet long. We lay soaker hoses down over the bed on top of the landscape fabric. It takes three, we go down the middle of one side of the bed and come back down the middle of the otherside with the hoses. We cut little holes in the landscape fabric and plant the tomatoes, peppers, squash (winter and summer squash), melons, and cucumbers down through the paper. Then we layer straw around all the plants at least six inches deep. This keeps the soil moist and helps it keep from drying out here in our hot humid weather. The other thing good about this method is it helps to keep soil from being splashed on the leaves where it can transmit diseases. We need to till a few more beds for the corn, grean beans and edible soybeans I still need to plant. I also have a bunch more zuchinni, yellow squash, acorn squash, cucumber and watermelons left to plant too. Thank you for all your kind words of welcome, I could hardly believe anyone would want to read my blog! Have a great day in the Lord! Blessings, Roni
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