Hey y’all… time is flying by so fast!

I’ve posted a new garden video on YouTube with the link below but I’ll try to show you a few pictures here as well.

You’ll see that we’ve added a couple of new beds near the greenhouse. The original plan was to make them 8x4x2 but we couldn’t get the lumber I wanted so we went with some 6 foot cedar pickets and used some leftover lumber and trellises that we already had on hand.

The beds ended up being 6x3x2 ish as they are built into the slope. It was less than $100 out of pocket for the materials as we had some things on hand already but it would be closer to $200 if we’d had to buy all the supplies.

I’ve planted some Ube and pumpkins in the bed for now. I’m hoping to grow some passion fruit or butterfly peas on the arch but we’ll have to see what happens. I’m hoping these will fill in and provide a little bit of privacy to the back yard.

We also straightened out the pollinator beds in front of these to make them look a little better. The kids gathered some pine straw for mulching and Shyanne helped out too!

Mr. Awesome also helped me make a new top for my table with the left over pickets and I got a new umbrella from Walmart as my old one was destroyed during a hurricane last year.

The rest of the garden has really grown thanks to a few days of rain. The weeds have also taken off and it’s been so hot and humid that we’ve had a hard time trying to get anything done outside… just little bits here and there.

We’ve divided the garden areas into ‘zones’ so we can focus on one main area at a time. I’ve also divided the watering up to make it easier in the mornings.

We water half of the gardens on ‘even days’ and the other half on ‘odd days’ unless it rains really well.

We try to harvest while watering… we focus on harvesting the areas that aren’t being watered to make things easier.

Mondays we try to focus on mowing and mulching although our little battery powered mower seems to have given out on us… it’s not even two months old so I’ll have to see if I can get it exchanged.

Tuesdays we work on trimming and trellising anything that needs it. The tomatoes are constantly needing trimmed and tied but that’s ok because we love tomatoes!

Wednesdays are for weeding and worms… lol. The weeding is pretty much self explanatory but I also try to make sure the worms get fed and I sift a bit of compost out every other week so I can make some compost tea.

The weeds can either be composted or fed to the chickens… they get excited when they see us in the garden. We also use weeds to make ‘swamp water’ fertilizer… if you’ve ever made it then you understand the name!

Thursdays are just for ‘catching up’ and checking the yards for trash as we do live near a road and things tend to get blown around.

Fridays are for fertilizing and if I need to spot treat for pests I will do that as well. I usually fertilize and treat in the late afternoons. My sprayer is also giving out on me so I’ll have to get a new one soon.

We really like using compost tea, ‘swamp water’, and/or fish emulsion for fertilizing and we’ve been trying a few different organic sprays for pests. The butterflies are starting to repopulate so we are hoping they might help with some of the pest pressure.

Saturdays are for catching up with seed starting, potting up, or transplanting as needed.

We also tend to save the bigger projects like building beds and such for the weekends.

We’ve got some plans for a garden revamp in the coming months and I’m excited.

If you’d like to watch the video that goes with this post you can check it out here:

We pray this helps someone!

God Bless!