New fence, replanting, travel plans

While Mama, Victoria, Mr. Plumley and the Echeveria kids went to Trade Days in Bowie, I went bus calling but before I got the to the church I went to Tractor Supply and got the cattle and hog panels I needed for the garden. I decided that rather than reinforce the fence on the side the cattle have access to I would rebuild it with cattle panels. At least those are strong enough to withstand Big Mama’s attempts to crumple them. What remained of the garden is slowly recovering. The cooler weather and careful watering have revived the strawberry plants that were not completely uprooted. The plum trees will not fully recover this year so, hopefully, the leaves they have remaining will be enough to carry them through until next year. The pear trees are so old that they have plenty of reserves to make a comeback. We still have most of the potatoes and the plants that were eaten down are sending up new shoots. Fortunately, all my miniature and dwarf fruit trees were left alone.

The primary reason Mama went to Trade Days was to buy the plants to refill the raised bed. She was not aware of my plans to redo parts of the garden until she got home a saw it. I used a couple cattle panels for trellises for the green beans and sweet potatoes. I used a hog panel for the peas to attach to as the plants grow. It made the garden look very nice when I got the panels in place. I was working on planting the peas and green beans when Mama got back home with her crew. She loved the look. Mr. Plumley just moaned about the possibility of frost killing everything we were planting. He can be pretty negative but I suppose in his eighty plus years, he has seen a lot of negative things happen. I went ahead and planted the beans, peas and okra seeds. We will hope for the best. I hilled up the potatoes for the last time and cleaned the leaves and fronds out of the strawberry bed. Then we all took a nap.

Saturday evening, we planted the tomato, pepper, watermelon and squash plants. I spent a good deal of time watering the new plants. If it does not rain today I will water them again. I have found it best to water generously during the first week or so with new plants. Again, the cool evenings have really helped the plants to adapt to their new surroundings – as well as their full exposure to the sun. Fortunately, the way the garden faces, it only gets the later afternoon and evening sun. That is often enough to burn things up, but not yet. We still have two full rows and about half of the raised bed to populate but Mama is out of ideas for new residents. I have confidence she will come up with something soon but for the moment, the garden is fuller and looks better than in any of the previous years. Now if we can stay home long enough to tend to it we might have some good results from all our work.

Brittany and Andrew should be in Kansas this weekend and Maggie and Aaron and the kids will be getting packed to move next month. They should be in Wilmington late in May. Victoria is planning a trip to connect with Cori, Nate and the kids in early June, which she hopes will include me and Mama – at least for the trip over. I am not sure if I will be able to make that trip but for the moment she and Mama are planning as though I am able. Work has things scheduled for me into June and July which will require a work around of schedules. Fortunately, Mama will be off for those months.

So, our summer is filling up quickly.