Archives 2020

Gardening is an activity that can require as much or as little equipment as one desires. My Dad always told me about an older man in Burkesville, Kentucky that turned over an acre of land with a shovel. The man raised peanuts. So, when I lived in Algood, I turned my garden,which was more the size of a raised bed, with a shovel and used a traditional hoe for weeding. Since moving to One Lane Farm, our tool inventory has increased. Here are a few of my favorites that I prefer not to do without.

Rear Tine Tiller

I have a 1980s rear tine Statesman tiller. It has a Briggs and Stratton motor. It was the last gift my Dad ever gave to me. Needless to say, it may be bronzed if it ever quits. In the four years I’ve had it, I have replaced the drive belt, pull string, tires, and propel spring. It has proved challenging to get parts for a tiller of its’ age. Statesman doesn’t even make a tiller anymore and the tires are an unusual size. Thankfully, I was able to find the tires at Home Depot, of all places, after having no luck at several tire and small engine repair shops. There are a lot of different types and brands of tillers. And each is useful for different needs. Due to the size of my gardens, I wouldn’t want anything smaller than what I have and rear tine is a must. Tillers are low maintenance and can be used for various home projects.

I use my tiller between the rows of my garden to kill weeds and to keep the soil turned. I believe tilling increases moisture absorption when it rains. Many times, when the ground is hard, the water seems to run off without having time to soak in. The tiller is also a great device to work in fertilizer and other minerals with.

Scuttle Hoe

Brent bought me a scuttle hoe this year from Lowe’s after my sister, Lisa, raved about hers. Boy, was she right on point. I love it! It has a stirrup on the end and it cuts the weed down while keeping the dirt in place. It’s the tool I use the most for weeding. The scuttle hoe has been the most effective in managing my crab grass and Johnson grass. On a side note, I prefer a wooden handle in my hand tools.

Weeding Hoe

The other hand tool I use most is the weeding hoe. I call it a fork hoe. It has a regular hoe on one side and a fork on the other side. It is great at grabbing and pulling up a clump of grass or weed roots. And it is the best thing I have found to throw a hill up for planting melons. I have had it for a couple of years. Brent bought it for me for Christmas one year, also from Lowe’s.

Seeder

To do my planting, I use Lisa’s seeder. It is a small two wheeled cycle with a holder for a seed plate and seeds. You push it down a row and it plants the seeds at a designated distance apart. There are different plates for different vegetable seeds. It also has an arm extension that allows you to mark off the next row based on the row planted previously. It provides uniformity in the garden. The seeder has replaced the old ways of using a string and hand dropping seeds. The seeder is a good investment if you have a lot of seeds to plant.

Yard Cart

Lastly, I want to mention my yard cart. I don’t know what I would do without it. Also, a Christmas gift from Brent a few years ago. He purchased it at Tractor Supply and it was the largest of the two sizes offered. My cart is used daily for pretty much everything. I transport tools back and forth. At planting time, I haul buckets of water in it. At harvest time, I fill it up with vegetables. It is also handy to use when washing vegetables because the water drains well. The cart has made life so much easier for me. Otherwise, I would be making dozens of trips walking and using up a lot of additional time.

Yes, I love my tools and equipment. I believe they serve a great purpose and can really make gardening more efficient. But I don’t believe they are a requirement. Don’t feel overwhelmed thinking you have to buy a truckload of tools to start growing, fruits, vegetables, flowers or anything else. Just use what you have or purchase a new piece each year as you can. Put them on your birthday or Christmas list, like I do. Whatever fits your needs and your budget, is just fine.

No matter what you do in life, in order to get things done, a person has to manage their time in some way or other. Gardening for the market requires most of my time from May to August. I work full time and the hours before and after work and on the weekends are usually spent completing a long list of gardening tasks. It always seems there is never enough time in the day to accomplish the to do list but I find there are a few things that really help to increase productivity. And I always try to remind myself that as long as I keep working and keep trying, that’s enough. Everything doesn’t have to be perfect and every box doesn’t require a check at the end of the day.

Prioritize

The thing I find most useful when managing my time is prioritizing tasks for the day. Some days I make actual written lists and some days, the list is just mental. The written lists are always better as things get forgotten by the end of the day, using the latter method. I try to prioritize based on the item that has the highest need for the day and also based on the time of day. Here in Tennessee, we have a lot of heat and humidity. This environment, especially when in drought, can be very hard for the garden plants and on me. I find I wilt just as the plants do during the heat. So I try to do my gardening either very early in the morning or during the afternoon hours of the day. Tying tomatoes to prevent them from breaking or falling over is high on the priority list. So I try to be in the garden before the workday starts at 8 am to complete the job. By doing this early instead of in the heat of the day, the plants are more tolerant of the handling.

Categorize

It also helps to manage my projects by categorizing their duration. For example, manual work in the garden is not year long. But for those four to five months, my housework takes second place. I keep all the daily tasks complete; dishes, laundry, floors cleaned but any major cleaning like windows or light fixtures is saved for time before or after garden season. Another example, this week we have obligations Monday through Thursday that have required a lot of prep work. So I know that these items must be done immediately as the project will end soon. The garden on the other hand, will be months longer, so I do have more leeway regarding some of those matters. Hoeing and weeding are the exceptions, as these need to be completed daily to keep the Johnson grass, morning glories and crab grass at a manageable level.

Routine

Lastly, my routine helps to manage my time. I am a creature of habit. Some would say this is an understatement, I’m sure. However, having a routine increases my productivity and efficiency. I usually tend to household chores at the same time each day. This saves time as I don’t have to think about what time I will do the dishes or prep dinner, it’s the same most every day. Here is a typical day:

5:30 am Wake up-Complete household chores: picking up, dishes, laundry.

6 am Garden-Hoeing, weeding, tilling, pruning, tying tomatoes, etc.

8am Work begins

1 pm Dinner-Work on household chores: fold laundry, dust, prep for dinner.

4:30 pm Work ends-Back to the garden to till, weed, hoe, prune, harvest, etc.

8:00-9:00 pm Shower and supper

10:00 pm-10:30 pm Bedtime

And then I remember, it’s okay that the peas look like rows of grass and my shower is dirty. I’ll just add those to the list for tomorrow and keep on going.

Strawberries are a very rewarding crop to grow. They are easy to plant and require minimal maintenance. Strawberries can live in shallow dirt and tolerate transplanting very well. However, a strawberry crop is an investment. You typically don’t get berries the first year. The crop usually bears the maximum yield in years three to five. After that, the patch needs to be replanted. Of course, there are always exceptions to this rule.

2017

I knew when we moved to One Lane Farm, I wanted strawberries. In 2017, I bought 25 plants from the county extension office and set those out along with about 57 plants my sister, Lisa, gave me from her patch. It was a mixture of Earliglow and Allstar varieties. The first year we didn’t get berries. It wasn’t until 2018 that we tasted our first harvest. But, they were definitely worth the wait.

2018

In 2018, we had 73 strawberries survive from the previous year. We added 100 Allstar plants, purchased from the county extension office and 139 plants from Lisa’s patch. Our patch tripled in size. I ate the first berries on May 4. I am partial to the Allstar and Earlieglow strawberries. They tend to be smaller in size but make up the difference in sweetness. These berries are beautifully red when ripe and are great for jams. My favorite is to freeze the berries on a cookie sheet and devour them when frozen, especially on a hot day. We harvested about a gallon in 2018. The location of our patch was the shadier part of our garden. It also experienced quite a bit of debris from the nearby tree line. I knew this environment may hinder the growth of the berries but decided to wait another year before making any changes.

2019

In 2019, we didn’t add any strawberries to our patch. It already measured about 100 feet, almost the length of our garden. I purchased chicken wire from TruValue to drape the berries due to extensive squirrel damage the year before. Tobacco sticks were cut in halves or thirds to use for stakes. The wire draped over the stakes and were secured with garden staples. When I picked berries, I would roll the wire back and return it afterwards. The first berries were picked on April 26. We harvested about three gallons. With as many plants as we had, our harvest should have been much larger. After this small harvest, we decided to make a change.

Present

This year, we moved our strawberry patch from one side of the garden to the opposite side. The new location receives more sunshine and it’s away from tree debris. I tilled the area several times to prepare the soil. Brent and I laid plastic down for weed control and proceeded to plant the berries in holes cut with a box cutter. Note for the future, a hand torch would make this part of the process much easier and make the holes more uniform in shape and size. A total of 186 plants were planted, 67 from Lisa’s patch and 119 from our own.

In the days afterwards, I tried to pinch off the blooms to prevent fruiting. I want the plants’ energy to be spent rooting, not spent bearing fruit. My hope is that this will make the plants stronger for the years ahead. So far, our berry plants are bigger than ever. We have seen more growth in just a few months than the rest of the years planted in the old site. We are very happy with the decision to move the patch.

A few things to remember when you plant strawberries. Location is key. Make sure the area gets plenty of sunshine and is free from tree debris. Prepare the ground well to slow the growth of competing grass and weeds. Be patient. It won’t be long before you are enjoying the sweet taste of a harvest!

Around One Lane Farm, a lot of plants require trellising. We use trellises for plant support and to increase the health of our plants. Here, we trellis our grapes, blackberries and several of our garden vegetables. By using mostly things on hand, we are able to recycle materials from other projects. And we are always looking for ways to improve our methods.

Blackberries

Blackberries don’t vine. But they do grow long branches that need support in order to keep them off the ground. For our berry trellis, we used sturdy wire, metal fence posts, wood fence posts and some eye screws. I ran strands of wire on each side of the berries, post to post, in order to encourage and support the long branches growing upward. This allows more sun exposure on all sides of the berries, makes mowing and trimming easier around the base and limits the hiding places for pests. Taller fence posts would have been ideal, but I’m satisfied with the outcome of using what I had on hand.

Grapes

In the beginning, I planted grapes without having any knowledge of what they really needed. I don’t know much more now than I did then but I have tried to improve our trellis system. First, I used some wooden 4 x 4 posts with a wooden type ladder panel on the top. I ran wire vertically down the length of the posts, hoping to inspire the vines to reach the top. This did not work out. The ladder panel rotted as it was not treated wood and the grapes did not reach the top. As I had to replace the trellis this year, I started watching videos and researching different methods. My grapes were planted next to the wooden posts and as the posts would not be moved, I had to adapt the trellis to my setup. I took inspiration from the two tier Cordon training system. We ordered one way wire vices from Amazon to hold the 9 gauge wire. The vice allows for strong tension on the wire to hold the weight of the grapes in full production. The 9 gauge wire we purchased at Lowe’s. Our grapes have suffered a couple of frosts and one hard freeze this year. The grapes have not had much growth and I do not expect fruit. So I cannot say how effective this trellis system will be. Hopefully, next year will allow for a better review.

Vegetables

Brent has taken down a few long rows of woven wire fencing around the property since we bought it. Instead of scrapping it, I have started using it as trellises for our garden vegetables. Last year it replaced bean sticks used for greasy greens and butter beans. It changed my life. The fencing provided so much stability for the beans. We didn’t have to worry about the wind or storms. The fencing improved air flow and sun exposure. And picking was a dream. This year Brent had taken down even more fencing and so we expanded to using it on our beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and zucchini. The fencing replaced almost 400 tobacco sticks that we used last year on the tomatoes. Yes, they were a nightmare especially the cleanup. Although, I am thankful to have had them at the time and glad to use something different now. It took four of us and two hours to put up the six rows of fencing for the vegetables but I am confident it will be worth the effort. My hope is that it will extend the life of the tomatoes and decrease the blight and disease on the vine vegetables. I’ll keep you posted on how everything holds up, literally.

Also, some very exciting news! Brent surprised me on Friday afternoon with the beautiful farm sign you see below. It’s at the entrance of our property. I absolutely love it!