Productive day

I didn't get as many things done today as I had hoped for but got some important things done.

Repaired the fence where the dogs tore a section down last night. Reinforced it with heavy gauge fencing wire. 

Then decided I was completely fed up with the dog battle. After a little research, found I could use the steel fencing wire as a conductor for an electric fence. So, I used the fencing wire, wooden stakes, insulated staples and a salvaged electric cord. (First attempt was a cord with a built-in GFCI breaker but the breaker was no good.) 

It's working! May sound mean but I have chuckled when I've heard the dogs yelp a few times. However, note that the electric cable is very close to the garden fence. If they are getting shocked, it's because they are trying to invade the garden. 

I do not feel guilty laughing because of everything the dogs have destroyed and continue to try to destroy. They have torn down sections of fence multiple times. They have chewed apart electric cords. They have dug up tomato plants and torn down stakes. Scattered seeds so lettuce and carrots are growing more in trenches than on top of the mounds, making weeding a hundred times more difficult. They've chewed up and ripped apart irrigation lines many times. Fact is, I have to walk the fence, yard and garden on a daily basis to find out what they have destroyed. 

Today, I also had to repair the intake side of the well pump because the dogs have messed with it so much the PVC intake pipe worked loose from the threaded fitting. 

Got the swamp cooler running. In this case, I connected the water supply to the well pump. Water from the well is cold (I've been told a constant 55 degrees). Ran a bleed-off line to the dogs water. Seems to be working nicely! I'm really happy with the increased humidity in the house, since ambient humidity was 5% today.

Built a few tomato supports as planned with 1x2's. Need more 1x2's to complete the job. 

A couple of the tomato plants are much bigger than I had thought. Because I had not staked them properly, they had been growing outward instead of upward. Once they had proper support, I could see their true size. They're going to be giants! 

So, not a huge number of accomplishments for one day but some significant ones. 

Phosphorous

Well, it's apparent there is enough Phos in my garden. Things are really taking off like never before. 

Still, spreading some compost is not a bad idea. Which I did this evening. The compost is doing quite well and I even have earthworms halfway up the pile! That was an awesome thing to see!

I've been picking dandelions by the thousands before they seed and either leaving them where they fall or tossing them in compost. 

Planted more watermelon seeds this evening, from sugar baby to giant and in between. 

A lot of my planting this year hasn't been very organized. Partly because of things disrupting my plans. I should have an interesting assortment throughout the garden, though. 

I'm happy and impressed with how well the corn is coming up where I planted it this year. Last year, that soil seemed rather weak. While I did work on it a bit, I was not expecting very positive results. Of course, it's still early in the season and things could change. 

More irrigation repair

Last night, the dogs did more damage to the irrigation system. Heard the well pump running at a time I had no timers set. Went out to find the dogs had pulled on the piping enough to crack the PVC fittings, causing a geyser in the yard. 

I was glad the damage was the output side, not the intake side of the pump. No damage done to the pump, itself.

So, I just unplugged the pump last night. This afternoon, got parts for the whole top junction. This time in metal, so they won't crack. 

Going to replace the intake side pipes and fittings with metal this summer. I still have galvanized pipe, so just need some fittings. Have to take measurements, first. 

Guess I don't really need any more Phosphorous than what's in the fertilizer I use. Rose bushes are blooming quite well and lots of flowers coming up. Been waiting for some compost to finish before spreading it, which I can probably do this week. 

I changed the drip timing to longer, less frequent intervals, to encourage deeper roots for existing crops. Seems to be working rather well so far. The longer, deeper irrigation should also help leach the sodium downward further, away from the root zone of the plants. 

Some of the corn an tomatoes are approaching 3 ft tall now. Few sunflowers are approaching 4 ft tall. (Except the tightly grouped ones, which remain under 1 ft for now. They tend to shoot up later and all at once.)

I have a real good feeling about the garden this year!

Cucumber vines!

At long last, I am seeing cucumber vines coming up! Only a few. Not really sure if the problem is weak soil or the fact that the dogs have torn apart the drip system where the cucumbers are planted multiple times. Or just that it's just now getting warm enough for them.

In any case, I planted a lot more cucumber seeds today. Just increasing my odds. Can thin them later if I need to.

Also planted lots more bush green beans. One good thing about beans is how densely you can plant them. Plus they're friendly to other plants.

Still battling weeds. Things are looking better now but still a long way to go. One problem this year is that the weeds got control last year. I had no heat tolerance last year, which I later found to be anemia. Not anemic any more, so heat tolerance is much better. Still, I'm left undoing previous damage. 

I also had things too densely planted last year. This year I'm planting densely but with more consideration to space needed for weeding and such. 

Finally winning the whitefly battle. Made a mixture of insecticidal soap and nicotine which is doing a great job. So, the sprouts are coming up much faster and with fewer casualties. 

Not much change

Not a lot of change in the garden this week. 

What tomato plants there are are doing well. Think we should have some tomatoes in a few more weeks. 

I'm seriously doubting I'll achieve 200 tomato plants in the garden this year. May eventually reach 100. That'll have to do, I guess.

More corn coming up and looking quite good. More watermelon vines sprouting. 

Still not seeing cucumbers. Surprisingly, most of the onions aren't looking very strong. Maybe I'm keeping the soil too damp for them.

Lots more flowers coming up than any previous year. 

Another surprise. I have not yet harvested all the lettuce. Relatively little has bolted yet and the ones that have are the smallest plants. 

Looks like we should have a decent carrot crop. Not as good as I had hoped for but good. I'll plant another carrot crop in late summer. 

Got out and pulled lots and lots of weeds today. Only a fraction of the weeds present. My best bet is to keep pulling weeds at least 30 minutes a day. 

Greener than ever!

The garden still is nowhere near where I want it to be. However, it really is turning greener than ever! 

I'm convinced at this point that no small part of this is due to increasing my use of sulfuric acid. I've been running acid through the irrigation system roughly once a week for the past 3-4 weeks. 

Though more gypsum, more organic material and reconfiguring the irrigation system hasn't hurt anything. 

No matter which step or combination, things are looking better over time. 

The flowers growing along the north fence are growing really well. That's a spot where I have been trying to get things to grow since I moved in. My only success there has been grass and weeds up to now.

The west flower bed isn't doing so great with flowers yet. However, three trees are doing really well there. Part of that may be because I only aggressively treated that spot with gypsum a few months ago. The good thing is that I have found earthworms in that area. There were none in that area last year that I found. 

The southwest flower bed is growing tons of sunflowers. Sure better than last year. Still hope to have marigolds there, too. But marigolds are just beginning to grow anyplace in the yard. They must need a lot of heat or sunlight to germinate because they always start rather late. However, they still produce more flowers than anything else I've grown so far.

Happy to say the Nasturtiums are coming up. So is cilantro. (Daughter will be happy about cilantro.) 

Whole west side of the main garden is beginning to grow things. Some of that area I've tried working before and it's been a problem area. Some of it is the new extension this year. I added lots of leaves, compost and gypsum to that area, treated with acid and improved the irrigation there. 

I planted more seeds today. Watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkin. Going to plant lots more watermelon this year since strawberries were a bust again. May try planting more strawberries if I get a decent job soon. Have to buy some well developed plants this time.  

New trellis

Built a new trellis on the west side of the main garden. This one is for pole green beans. Ran a drip line dedicated to that trellis. Going to mostly do bush beans this year and only one large trellis of pole beans.

Corn is coming up nicely. I went against conventional advice and planted corn near some of the tomatoes. Main rationale is that they attract some of the same insects and diseases. Hope it doesn't end badly. 

Lettuce isn't bolting yet but keeping an eye out. Highs this week are around 90. Once I see a couple bolting, just going to harvest all of it en masse. 

Onions seem to be doing well. Tomatoes are beginning to flower again. Pepper plants are growing but slowly. Have a few melon and pumpkin plants beginning to show. 

Lots of carrots but huge numbers are in the trenches (thanks to the dogs). May have to try transplanting many of them to be able to control weeds effectively. Main drawback of transplanting I've read is they don't grow as large. However, if I don't control these weeds, going to have big problems.

Saplings

Just an observation about tree saplings.

Some of the saplings I planted last year have been quite dormant until recently. Now they are beginning to show signs of life. Sometimes, not quite as I expected. 

The plum tree daughter and I planted had already formed leaves and had flowered this year. Then came multiple late freezes, which made all the leaves and flowers drop. Then the main trunk stopped showing signs of life. I thought it had died off but waited. Now it is growing a secondary trunk from the root ball! Nice! I'm doubting we'll have plums this year but happy the tree survived. 

That is the largest sapling which has done this but there are two others which are doing the same thing. Main trunk died off but they are forming secondary trunks. 

Several others are just now forming leaf buds and leaves. Guess it just wasn't warm enough for them before now. Some of those looked so gone I was about ready to cut them off at the soil. Glad I didn't. 

Okay. I have a few hours before dark. Need to go trim some grass and weeds.

Dead seedlings

Well, for once I used poison for flying insects in the house, around the tomato and pepper seedlings. Next thing I knew, nearly all of them were dead. So, back to square one on the backups. Get some more seeds started this week. 

Happily, I am seeing more tomato plants recovering and a few are bushing out. Seeing more and more flowers growing. Not blooming yet but growing. 

Something I've forgotten to do last few weeks is an occasional flooding. At this point it doesn't take much. The soil is saturated. Just need to run an extra cycle on the sprinklers will do it and help leach the salt downward. Water but not enough and salt floats upward in the soil. Water enough and it leaches downward. 

I still need to buy more acid but just the water should be helping increase acidity. Even the very worst areas are showing signs of life now. 

May frost

I know some places had snow this past week. Here, we had another light frost last night. Yes, in the desert, in May.

At least this time I was home and was able to protect the plants. Wrapped tomato plants with plastic sheeting and used styrofoam cups over the (much shorter) pepper and bush green bean plants. No losses this time.

So, between frost and dogs, it currently appears I am down to 16 tomato plants from 58 that were growing. I have more seedlings inside which I can plant out sometime soon. Started 58 more seeds tonight. Get more started soon as I can. Hate getting them going this late but still shooting for 200 total.

Things are picking up in spite of the frost. More corn, green beans and flowers coming up. See the most carrots growing that we have had any year yet. Yay! 

I planted more sorghum. Hoping to find a way to process it. Even if I can't, it should offer some shade to some shorter plants. If I can get the equipment at a good price to process it, it would be a really practical crop for personal use. Seed heads can be ground into gluten-free flour and the stalks produce molasses. Or a syrup I could use for making beer. Allegedly states really good. The processed stalks would make good compost or could be used to make ethanol. It's somewhat decorative, so I planted just a few seeds in the front yard, interspersed with the giant sunflowers. If the marigolds planted in that area come up, I think it should make an interesting contrast. 

I did spread thousands of flower seeds over the newly irrigated spots. These are flowers I harvested that actually grew here last year. So I'm rather confident they will come up. I have random flowers coming up where some of these grew last year. 

So, still a lot of hope for the year.. if it will stop freezing!