The Garden Is Planted and Other Farm Happenings

Bees, Gardening, Mulch, Prayer Garrden, Reflections

We got some light rain yesterday and there is more in the forecast for tomorrow. Boy is that a good thing. Our garden is planted but we haven’t had much rain so we’ve been watering plants to keep them alive.

On Saturday, May 15 my husband put the pump in the pond so we could begin filling the tanks that we use for irrigation.

It may or may not have been my turn to put the pump in the pond but here’s how that works each year.

My Husband: “It’s your turn to put the pump in the pond.”

Me: “Ok as soon as we have a couple of consecutive days of 80 degree F (26.6 C) weather for the water to warm up I’ll do it.”

My Husband: Puts the pump in the pond when temperatures are still in the 60’s or 70’s F.

OR some Years it goes like this

My Husband: “It’s your turn to put the pump in the pond.”

Me: No honey. Last year was my turn. I know you did it but it’s still your turn this year.

My Husband: Puts the pump in the pond.

I didn’t get any pictures of the planting or the garden as of yet but I’ll tell you what we have planted. Potatoes, onions and cabbage were plated first and are all doing well at this point. Tomatoes, hot peppers, sweet peppers, eggplant, melon, cucumbers and basil were planted as seedlings or young plants. Beets, carrots, Swiss chard, green beans, three types of squash, dill, sweet corn, pumpkins, sunflowers, and broom corn were planted as seed. ** My husband brought home a package of okra seed yesterday and we are going to plant some. We have never grown okra before and I have only eaten it a few times but we decided to give it a try.

While it feels good to have the garden planted we realize the work has only just begun.

Now for other farm happenings:

Puppy Playground

This spring we doubled the area that we have fenced in the back field. It’s an area where we have apple trees, our blueberry patch and our strawberry patch. It is now known as the puppy playground. It’s over 52,000 square feet where Ranger can safely run off-leash and sniff ’til his heart’s content.

Prayer Garden

As always the prayer garden is a work in progress.

We decided this year to add mulch to dress it up and for weed control. I started by weeding then edging.

Then we began adding the mulch.

It’s nearly done and I hope to have it finished by this weekend.

Salvia and Thyme

Mean while we have watched the transition from mostly yellow blossoms to lots of purple and some pink blossoms.

Irises
Dianthus
Chives
Lilac

Chicken Coop Construction

We are in the process of building a new home for the chickens. It’s a slow process because it gets worked on in between other things that need to be done. I don’t have any photos yet but as we get further along I’ll share some of the process. Hopefully by the end of June our chickens will be in their new home.

Bees

Our bees arrived as scheduled on May 13. It was a lovely day for hiving bees and my husband had the two new hives set up before noon.

My husband and I agree – it’s nice to have bees on the farm again.

Mowing

It seems like I’ve spent a lot of time mowing grass this spring. According to the mower it’s been over 18 hours. The task has been made easier by this new mower we purchased last month.

Outdoor Décor

When the local greenhouses opened in the beginning of May we stopped by a new one just down the road to purchase flowers for our hanging baskets and porch pots. Their prices were a little higher than the one we usually shop at but we wanted to support this new local business.

They did have a nice selection.

Thanks to my husband’s diligence in taking them inside on the frosty nights and making sure they have enough water each day they are all thriving.

The one above has a volunteer sunflower growing in it. Not sure how it got there but I see it as a gift.

Play Time

It’s not been all work though.

We’ve been blessed to have a couple visits from the grandkids (and their parents).

And we’re looking forward to many more of these.

Thanks for visiting. Do you have a garden planted?

22 thoughts on “The Garden Is Planted and Other Farm Happenings”

  1. [Hi Ruth – I apologize for my tardiness in commenting. I am many days behind in Reader thanks to a major computer malfunction at work. On May 20th, our Outlook crashed and we lost our ability to e-mail for about five days, plus lost all our data; we went from Outlook and Word 2010 to Office 365. I’ve spent a great deal of my own time troubleshooting with the I.T. guy and spent most of the long holiday weekend doing yardwork. So now I will try my best to get through a massive amount of blog posts.] In the meantime, here I am reading this post about all your hard work and you probably felt like I did on Monday night from all that bending, etc. and using muscles unused every day. You sure are industrious but it’s worth it in the end. I’m glad you got to get a few visits in and make life more like normal again. In your spare time (ha, ha), my friend posted this on Facebook. I am on Facebook mostly for news and nature sites, but this is a friend from high school and I never knew her to be into crafting in prior posts, but she showed this free afghan … I liked the bees and color and thought maybe you would like it too. https://fabartdiy.org/crochet-honeycomb-baby-blanket-free-crochet-pattern/?fbclid=IwAR1yBtPwqpTBZnhl35w7eg2EHYOf-uW0Wz8uWMUueObRXwWKvYNdRTTXTuc

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    1. Oh my Linda, that computer stuff just sounds like a big mess! You know I did make a honey comb afghan for Jackson when Tina was pregnant with him. It didn’t have the bees on it though. I just went looking for a picture of it but can’t find it.
      We sure are thankful for the rain we got yesterday. I hear we are in for a hot weekend.

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      1. Yes, I wanted to tell people whom I always comment on their posts that I felt badly for being so behind. I had to work part of the weekend and a few weeknights to help get it resolved. I thought of you right away and thought it was nice they have other crafts and free instructions, nice for you, a crafty person for the Winter. Hard to think of Winter when we’ll get temps in the 90s again. It was gorgeous last weekend and I loved that – this, not so much. That was a good rain yesterday, a long soaking.

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  2. It looks like you’ve been very busy! I love your prayer garden. It’s beautiful! I hope you get more rain. We finally got some today and we’re supposed to have a little bit more tomorrow. Have a wonderful Memorial Day!

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    1. They decided it would be fun to make a slide out of the large bale of straw. Other runner-up activities were throwing pebbles into the pond and picking dandelions and blowing the seeds and watch them drift in the wind. It was all tons of fun. 🙂

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  5. I love your responses about putting the pump in the water. That would fall under the husband category if I had one. ☺ Your yard is beautiful especially the prayer garden! Thank you for sharing! ❤

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