The Garden Goes In!

Two days ago we completed the irrigation project for the garden and orchard and I am thrilled with the result. We have enough water pressure to drive all drip lines which as you know from a previous post was a concern and it proved that while we are not fluid engineers, we can make it up as we go along.

In the orchard, we put in 50ft ½” drip lines for each hugel and in the garden, we put in 9 ¼” lines each 15’ in length. Yesterday, we put in 16 rosemary plants along the garden perimeter, 150 tomato plants on hugels 4,5 and 6, and 13 lavender plants in the bed in front of the house. We still have onions, shallots, garlic, rhubarb, cucumbers, squash, sunflowers, sage, mint, basil, thyme, dill, oregano, and a lot more lavender (like 25 more plants) to go.

You might ask why so much lavender? In addition to the pleasant aroma, lavender also repels moths, scorpions, fleas, flies, and mosquitoes. We will be able to harvest it and tie into bouquets and place that inside around the house.

But 150 tomato plants? We were trying to germinate 168 seeds but a few did not sprout. Back to the question. Our plan is to can a good majority, eat some fresh, and likely dry the remainder. Plus tomatoes are one crop that the Gophers will not touch.

As we gear up to finish the garden we need to be cognizant of rabbits and deer. While the orchard is protected the garden at this point is not. I have been researching how to ward off these real threats to our hard work and discovered a great new product called MePee. Yes, that is what you think it is, if you are a human, and eat meat, MePee will smell to a deer like there is a predator nearby. It also, surprising acts like a good fertilizer, so bonus points for that and for the extra special prize it reduces the amount of water going into the septic system. Ding, Ding, Ding, we have a winner!

Now the real question is how will the B&B guests feel about this? I guess an opportunity for another future post.

The start of our lavender farm

Our irrigation hook up for the orchard and garden