All this from an email to my relatives, modified for other readers.

Gardening at the Hemlocks

As a lead in, I’ll do some Fall Planting, which is minimal, but even that prompts this post. I hate to assume anything. By the way, the Hemlocks is in east Tennessee and on the Cumberland Plateau and around 36 degrees north latitude.

I’ll be doing some planting of garlic cloves tomorrow, or later today, in large cups to transplant to the ground in early spring 2013.  I like garlic in my cooked meals since I like its believed medicinal qualities. By the way, most garlic and potatoes one buys at the USA grocery store have been treated to tamp down reproduction, kind of like the shots mothers can get to tamp down breast milk production after birth of a child. Most of my plantings have not been treated, I think.

I’ve got a lot of clear plastic and tons of staples and a manual staple gun to turn the kitchen porch for the second cottage into a poor man’s green house, and even some shelving to use inside it. Heck, I will probably use some duct tape, too. So don’t be surprised or embarrassed if you see some kind of jury rig green house on the porch next door. Hopefully it will be stronger than most commercial green house stuff I can buy these days.

Now there are two obvious locations to plant a future garden at the Hemlocks. Both areas have been limed and fertilized in the recent past.

 

By the way, I read that during WWII most of the vegetables grown on USA farms went to feed our soldiers overseas so local Americans that could, grew 2/3 of their own vegetables in their own gardens. That’s the Hemlocks approach right now, like grow my own to eat. Plus take multi-vitamins and minerals, too.  Or so says my doc. Now I don’t have a green thumb, but figure I can grow food if I have to. Now if I have a choice, even with inflation, I generally choose to go to the local grocery store for my vegetables. Plus I will grow and can some of my own, too, mostly to prove I can, and see if I live, to boot. Right I think I will live. My trials/tests to date suggest so, at least. Heck I will even try some "Tattler" infinately reusaable can lids very soon to see if it really works. After all, what is the worse thing that happens, like I die, though I obviously don't think so.

The obvious choice number one is the garden area behind the barn (like several acres), and it has been used as a garden in the past. It is large, well sunlit, and been disked once this summer. It is where I have had past gardens, most of which failed because of lack of summer showers. Now the potatoes did well, but we did periodically irrigate them with local spring water. Now it was an open area in the distant past, planted in white pine in the 1950's past, so one can assume once I cleared it and sold the timber, the soil was probably acidic just from the pine straw.

The less obvious choice number two is more micro, and is the side yard between the compound and the driveway. As the one who mows it, there are large swaths that would do quite well for a garden, I think (like the grass likes it a lot). And I already have an apple tree and budding blueberry patch located there. In particular is the area closer to the Hemlocks tree line, believe it or not. Also the far front yard would be good for a fruit orchard area, I think. Already one peach tree is growing in it and doing quite well. Right now it just feeds the local critters.

A couple of generalizations follow. When I limed and fertilized all these areas, especially in the yard areas, the amount of wild violets that came out in the spring in the yard area were astounding, and pretty. I always assumed the seeds had just been dormant, and all it took to get them to grow and bloom was some lime and fertilizer and spring rains in this otherwise acidic and poor soil. And, second, there is evidence that the Indians had gardens here, too; so I figure I am as smart as they were.

Heck, I might even put in a bird and squirrel net over my blueberry patch just to protect the blueberries for human consumption . The netting is here. Plus the sticks to hold it up are all around.

PS The Hemlocks probably has around a couple thousand seeds of various vegetables, all either frozen or refrigerated, usually by locally made electricity. Sounds good, but one still has to grow the seeds to plant; hence one purpose of the green house. Now the Hemlocks does have lot of cups (like 500) and starter peat plugs, but it will still be work.

PPS Anyway, that is the gardening setup right now.