Still at It- Prepping for Ruth Stout/ No Dig Market Garden

We have been stopped for a few days because of rain, but we've managed to breakdown about half of the huge round bale of hay. Sure, we could continue to work in the rain, but we aren't in any hurry. It also doesn't behoove us 60-ish, widow women have a cold catch us either. The daytime temperatures are in the 50s until mid afternoon and then only rises a few degrees more before it gets cold again. With rain...fuhgeddaboudit!

It's strange the way my body is now. My cold tolerance directly relates to my age. A lot of it has to do with my semi-new heart medicines for low blood pressure and heart rates and in part <cringe> age. I don't get chilly, but teeth chattering cold in temperatures less than 65 degrees. Now, I'm almost like Mel who gets cold below 80 degrees. She's a NE Georgia mountains transplant from Orlando, FL. Up until this year, I was running around outside in T-shirts until the temperature was below 55. Now, I'm already into layer dressing and sweatshirts at 55 degrees let alone the 40s early daytime temps. I'm even wearing flannel nightgowns to bed. It's totally strange to me. But it's still not cold enough for me to break out my winter jacket.

Right now, we've got four rows of a garden on tier three done  to 50'. Then it's down to tier four for another four rows at 50' and that will be it. So we'll end up with eight 50' planting beds plus the three 25' beds we've made close to the house. Mel still has to make steps to each tier with a hand rail so I have easier access to the garden area in the orchard. We'll be hauling three cinder block in the cart at a time down the tiers to achieve them. According to the plan it will take six blocks per step times six steps cut into each tier. It should get us a year and a half of vegetables and herbs of self sufficiency... if it grows. 

Planning the plantings (isn't that what winter is for?)

In total area, it's more than twice as much of what we have planted in the past. With a traditional no till market garden setup that's mostly a salad lettuce mix, ours does not. Less than 1/4 of a row will be dedicated to salad greens. All the rest will be assorted vegetables. I know I'll be using a whole rows for green peas, green beans, spinach, tomatoes, and drying beans (3 types). For the flint corn, I'll plant 20' of three rows for optimum open, cross pollination for cornmeal and for supplementing our chicken feed. Now cucumbers zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, and okra, I only plant ten plants each for our food and the market. Those ten each plants with a normal harvest is plenty.  I may plant sweet corn in the house area garden or I may just buy a bushel for canning and be done with it.

I planted more garlic, can you believe it? All the garlic I planted in the orchard area to protect the fruit trees have naturalize (become self propagating and resow themselves so I get plenty of scraps from them, nut the garlic tastes a bit off. It's hot and super strong.  That's great for the trees because the strong smell keeps deer, rabbits, squirrels, and other predatory insects away from the trees and fruit. Even the birds are deterred somewhat. I planted hard and soft neck garlic and before he hard freezes, I mulched them in heavily. The same went for my onion seeds.

The deer hit my Daikon radish pretty hard by the deer and the wild rabbits. I went to harvest some for Kimchi and to store. It was a trade off because our firewood young man, he brings the wood up and stacks, he'll even split it for us if he brings his splitter, for us for hunting pledges on our property. This year he shot an 8-point buck. So we got half the meat too. Not too shoddy of a deal. Well, worth my going to the grocery store to get one radish. With the ginger pots moved onto the back deck, harvesting the ginger for my kimchi was a breeze too. I put up twice as much kimchi than I did in previous years because I always ran short and store bought kimchi is BLEECH! I'm guessing that those folks that like the supermarket kimchi don't know, any better and have not had kimchi made by a Korean before. I can't blame them for not knowing any better. That's like the difference between store bought sauerkraut in the can versus homemade. There is no comparison. Fresh grown and fresh made, and fermented  is more packed with vitamins and minerals that does the body good.

So being slow and steady with our prep work in the new  garden.  Once again, sort of starting from scratch. The orchard area already has three or four years of soil building already accomplished. Once again we are shaking things up at the Cockeyed Homestead. We're going back our base plans we made when I first moved here. Sometimes, you have to take several backward steps to move forward in the right direction. May all your forward steps be giant and your backwards ones be tiny.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo