garden news-fence them in

GARDEN NEWS-FENCE THEM IN

recently ms b had her kindergarten teacher give her and the other students a full packet of sunflowers to plant 
she told them plant them wherever you want
so
ms b and mr hudson planted several of them in their garden at their house
then
last week on their trip to our community garden i suggested they plant some of the seeds in our childrens garden at the community garden where i volunteer and where i have my garden plots

at the entry to our childrens garden section there were two empty pots just waiting to be filled with potting soil
so ms b and mr hudson used shovels and trowels to fill up their respective pots

in the picture you can see mr hudson with his head and arms deep into the potting soil bag to get a big shovel full of potting soil
after filling up the pots they then scattered pretty randomly the sunflower seeds into the pots
yes i  had to thin them out later and will need to redistribute the seeds some

they then took watering cans and watered in the sunflower seeds as well as watered the rest of the plants in the kids garden

job well done


these are garlic a red italian brand from a local nursery 
this was a 30 ft row of garlic
now garlic doesnt get real big here when it grows
in texas they tend to get larger

these garlic were harvested after the leaves had began to brown
they will be left in the sun for several days then like most of the food we produce in the central part of our community garden it will be donated to food kitchens or shelters or food banks
there is around a hundred garlic bulbs
buy an organic garlic bulb at whole foods then multiple that by 100 to get an idea how much these are worth


then we harvested our onions we planted back in december
we got these from dixondale farms in texas linked here
interesting is some local central california nurseries sell the dixondale farms onions 
i just bought them direct from dixondale
the ones we planted was the short day sample mix which include the 1015y super sweet texas onion and the texas early white onion and the red onion 

we have been harvesting these onions gradually 
recently most of the onion leaves had fallen over
so 
we bent all of them over
pulled them from the ground
leaving them laying in the beds to dry for about 2 weeks
they all will be donated to the groups mentioned above

the largest ones are softball sized

these onions are sweet
they dont make you cry when you cut them


last week a high school volunteer and i put up this 30 ft row of fencing down the middle of one of our tomato rows
we used cattle panels that were 5 ft tall and used t posts to hold them in place
i used my country n skills to put up the fencing

the tomatoes will be tied up to the fencing or woven back and forth as they grow
allowing us better access to our tomatoes 
and
to keep the tomatoes off the ground


then in this 30 foot row of tomatoes we put up a row of cattle panels on each side of the beds
this tunnel of fencing will help keep the tomatoes upright and off the ground also
as we harvest we can reach through the fencing to access these tomatoes

now in my garden i use my circular collapsible tomato cages i bought from craigslist
these are the best cages ive ever used
mine are 6 ft tall and 24 in in diameter
here is a link to the companies texas website texas tomato cage
its the last cage youll have to buy since they last forever

keep on gardening
if you have excess produce give it away to your friends or neighbors
or
do like our community garden does
donate it to those in need

the organicgreen doctor