In this week’s update, we had a serious windstorm that tested our fences, in an effort to kill grass in the garden, we moved potato bags, and we finally had bean germination in the planters I built. Let’s dive in!
Windstorm Tested Our Fence
Last Thursday, we had a pretty strong windstorm that basically lasted all day. There wasn’t a thunderstorm attached to it, but this windstorm came on the heels of lots of rain that softened the soil. The windstorm didn’t have overly strong gusts of 40+ MPH, but it was a steady 15 MPH all day long with gusts around 25 MPH. The long-term consistency of it resulted in the wind working the weaker fence posts and bamboo stakes loose to the point where multiple sections of the fence were bent over and nearly falling on our garden beds. It even broke some of the posts off in the ground, making it impossible to hammer them back in.
I quickly cut and hammered in 6 more of the heavy-duty fence posts I wrote about last week, shoring up the most problematic sections. It’s really cool to watch how these thicker posts can take on the strain of the wind and weight of the fence without struggling. As I was attaching the fence to the posts with zip ties, I noticed that there were places throughout the garden where the fence material was stretching as it battled the wind. I think it was because there was only 1 vertical strip of the fence that was connected to the fence post, so it was carrying all the weight. In these places, I added a second zip tie and made sure that 2 vertical strips were attached. We’ve since had some more wind, and it looks to be doing better.
Moving Our Potato Bags
Since we planted our potatoes, we had the bags positioned at the side of our house. It was a great location because it got sun early in the morning, late in the afternoon, and in the evening. The house still provided shade during the hottest part of the day. They were also able to get adequate rain while being protected from strong winds. Last Friday, the bags were moved into our garden to weigh down the cardboard we placed in the beds to kill grass. Using cardboard as a weed killer is going very well. Within a week, the grass under the cardboard was mostly killed off, with bare soil exposed. What didn’t go as well, though, was the wind blowing the cardboard around the garden.
I expected the cardboard to be heavy enough to stay put when it got wet, but that wasn’t the case. The same day that I cut new fence posts, I had to go out and gather the cardboard pieces that were blown around. The potato bags weigh a lot and will prevent the cardboard from being blown around in the future. The bags also look good in the garden, and it’s nice to be able to see all of our plants in one area. We’re also going to be using gallon milk jugs, vinegar bottles, and other used containers that we fill with water to weigh down additional cardboard pieces.
Getting Beans to Germinate
If you’re a regular reader of the blog, you’ll know that we’ve had issues with getting our beans to germinate in planters I built. There are three planters. Originally, one had Cherokee Trail of Tears beans in it, another had Grandma Nellie’s Mushroom beans in it, and the third had Mexican Sour Gherkin cucumbers in it. The beans never germinated, and the cucumber transplanted died. However, in another planter that I built last year, we had successful germination of Iroquois Skunk Pole beans. It was very perplexing. We resowed bean and cucumber seeds in the planters, but again, they failed. Finally, we tried planting in them a third time, but the difference this time is that we planted the Skunk Pole beans, which we had already successfully germinated. This past weekend, they finally germinated.
In all three planters, we have bean plants starting to grow, and now we have to figure out the trellising system. The Skunk Pole plants grow very tall (the first plants are roughly 8 feet tall), so we need to build an extension of some sort onto the existing planter so that the plants can thrive. I’m not certain what direction this will take, but I’ll follow up when it’s done. Right now, we’re very excited to have more beans growing.
Other Updates and Looking Ahead
The second batch of pumpkins, beans, corn, and squash that we sowed are doing great. It’s crazy that we went from roughly a 10-percent germination rate to a 100-percent one with the pumpkins and squash. It doesn’t make any sense. We need to sow more pea seeds when the weather cooperates to get a full row of plants, and closer to the end of the month, the plan is to sow the rest of our sweet corn rows. Happy gardening!
One Rabbit Riot 
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