Garden at SHAPE Eco Farm Begins

 

Now that we are all moved into our home in Wake Forest, we have now begun to focus our efforts on the garden. Setting up a fence was a must because of the deer that reside on our property as well as the bumble bee eating cat and the rabbits that would have a feast. The fence posts are 10 feet tall and buried 2 1/2 feet into the ground. It took a total of 12 fence posts to construct the fence as well as deer proof netting that we secured to the fence posts. To keep the critters out, we bought chicken  wire that is 2 ft. x 50 ft. and cut it in half so it would be 1 ft. and cover a grand total of 10 ft. Mesh hardware cloth would have been ideal except it is pricey. Our chose was the more economical one.

This is what we used to go along the bottom of the fence netting.

 

Digging the holes for the fence posts was an entirely different story. It took both my dad and boyfriend to get the task done. Dad tried it solo, but the electric post hole digger had a mind of its own. Upon hitting a root it took off out of the hole and starting spinning dad around with it. The machine also lost 6 screws along the way and the gas tank fell off. It finally conked out and resulted in finishing the last stretch with the old-fashioned do it yourself post hole digger. 

    

We decided upon certified compost and had it trucked in.

There is enough dirt for the vegetable garden and flower garden.

Dad helped me get the compost onto the rows.

 

I spent April 5th shoveling and raking out rows so we could put the compost on top. I have 5 rows that are each about 40 feet. The other side of my garden is for herbs and flowers. My future blog entries will show that side. For today the focus is on the vegetable garden.

I planted the first row with tomatoes and eggplant. I planted peppermint as a companion plant to keep away the cabbage white butterfly that eats vegetables. The down side is that tonight is supposed to be a low of 33 degrees! The weather is not on my side this year. Can someone tell the weather that it is April 15? Thank goodness for frost blankets. I’ll keep everyone updated after a long break I took from blogging. Things have been busy and now I have plenty of post worthy blog material.