May 29

I took this week off from work to plant the garden. It rained for the first few days of the week and the ground was too wet to work until yesterday, May 28th. It started to rain today just as I was taking these pictures and the ground is now too wet again.

I spent over 8 hours yesterday planting the following. All rows are 75' long. A double row is a row that is planted on either side of the furrow (drip hose) and is the same as two single rows.

2 double rows of sugar peas.
1 double row of Nantes carrots.
1 double row of Danvers carrots.
2 double rows of Detroit beets.
5 rows of Ambrosia sweet corn.
13 bell peppers
6 Jalapeno peppers
6 Banana peppers
12 Roma tomatoes
8 Goliath tomatoes
18 DX tomatoes
1 Delicious tomato, I got this free at the nursery just for walking in the door.

2 double rows of Blue Lake bush beans.
1 double row of Blue Lake pole beans. For the last few years everyone but me has wanted pole beans to make it easier to pick so I gave in this year. I still need to put up some type of support for the vines.

It looks as if the flag emitters are not going to hold up more than 2 years maybe three. The green flag part that can be removed to flush the emitter is not UV resistant and breaks off when I try to clean out the emitters. I need to give the Dug corp a call and let them know about the problem but I am sure they already know about it. You an see the drip emitters in the pictures of the tomato and the pepper.

Some of the soaker drip hose is on it's third year and is working great as far as I can tell. Some of it is Toro and some is a brand that I can not remember. All of the supply hose is Toro Blue Strip and is holding up well in the sun light.

We had a hard time getting the potatoes dug last year due to the weather. I dug the last few rows in the rain and snow. As you can see in this picture we have a lot of volunteers even after I plowed the entire garden.

The tomato plants look a bit peaked. I bought them over a week ago and just got them in the ground yesterday. As long as we do not get a frost in the next week or so they should green up just fine.

You can see the Little Marvel peas just starting to come up. I planted these over a week ago.

You can see the flag drip emitter on the left in this picture. The flag part has yet to break off on this one.

Here is the first planting of corn. I ran the drip hose on top of the seeds and will move it down into the furrow after the corn starts to come up.

May 22

We were able to get the potatoes planted on Monday May 16th. This year we have 50 lbs of Pontiac's and 50 lbs of Yukon Gold seed potatoes in the ground. The Yukon Golds seem to store better then any of the other varieties that we have tried. We ended up with 12 rows total. The rows are 75 feet long. I decided to try something different and planted the rows end to end. This made it easier to make the furrows with the tiller and hopefully easier to harvest when the time comes.


I was able to get some Little Marvel peas in the ground on Tuesday before it started to rain. the ground was still too wet to plant yesterday the 21st and rain is in the forecast for the next three days so it may be 6 days or more before I can get any more planting done.

May 15

We have had a wet winter and spring. I was finally able to get into the garden to plow May 2nd and harrowed it on the 3rd. We are just waiting for the soil to dry out enough to plant potatoes. Things are looking good for tomorrow.

Here are some videos of the boys plowing with the Ferguson TO20 tractor.

Here are some pictures of the old man plowing or ploughing if you prefer the old world term. The plow is a single bottom with about a 16" moldboard. It works perfect with the 20 horse tractor. I still had the winter chains on the rear tires due to the fact that the manure that I spread a week before was very wet and green.

This last photo shows my future farmer Matthew.