Posted By FarmerJ on April 27, 2010

Last Monday was a beautiful spring day.  If you stopped long enough to listen, you could hear the buzz of tractors all around ~ and, it was no different here on the Farmstead.  Darling Husbie has been itchin’ to get some seeds stuck into the ground for a few weeks now.  He ingeniously created a mathematical spreadsheet to help us determine when to plant the corn so that I don’t have 4,000 ears to process all at once.  The spreadsheet, compared with Darling Husbie’s wacky summer schedule, told us last Monday was the day.

We have a triangle plot somewhere around 7,000 sf designated as the ‘Corn Plot.’  [This year, we're utilizing both of the 6,000 sf rectangle plots for 'my' garden ~ the corn belongs to Husbie...and the potatoes, which I 'lend' him the space in my plot for.]  Last year, my Darling Husbie had so much fun planting corn, he went a little hog wild.  He planted the 7,000 sf triangle and one of the 6,000 sf rectangles with corn.  All at once.  We called and emailed everyone we knew in the area to come pick all the corn they could stand, or all that their vehicle could carry ~ which ever was greater.

Since we aren’t equipped to mechanically harvest the corn, and I think I’ve convinced Husbie I’m still a little too young [well, a girl can pretend, can't she?] to work to death just yet, Husbie’s altered his planting strategy this year.  We’re going with two varieties of sweet corn ~ Ambrosia, which is a 75-day plant; and Incredible, which is an 85-day plant.  So, the varieties naturally give us a 10-day stagger to begin with.  Then, with Husbie’s ingenious spreadsheet, he calculated the remainder of the plantings so that we’ll have corn coming to its prime about every 6 – 10 days from about the first of July through early- to mid-August.  It should work out pretty well, giving me a few days’ breather to continue processing all the other goodies from ‘my’ garden plots.  At least it looks good on paper.  We shall see!

So!  The spreadsheet and the calendar said it was time to plant the first round.  [I think my Lovie has the spreadsheet rigged sort of like statistics, you know?  You can manipulate the data anyway you want to get your desired outcome.  Shhhhh...]  I didn’t have to ask Darling Husbie twice about doing it, either.  I was still muttering something about spacing ~ plant 4, skip 2, plant 4 ~ until I turned around and realized I was talking to an empty chair.  Husbie already had Samson, the beloved 1949 Ford 8N [thankfully spared from the shop fire because he was parked in the garage attached to the house], and the ol’ John Deere 2 Row Lister Planter geared up and making his first pass before I could even get my flip flops on and out the door with the camera in hand.

I know it took every ounce of willpower for Husbie to stop at 8 little rows.  He was having too much fun, and he was just barely getting started.  But, he refrained and within 10 minutes, he was done planting the first round of corn ~ that’s including the time it took to connect the planter, fill the buckets, and disconnect the planter when he was done.

You can see Peanut, above, inspecting Dad’s work and hunting for any worm, snake or vole that might have gotten turned up during the planting process.  We love our worms and snakes, so we don’t let the dogs do any damage to them.  But, the voles?  Well, the dogs can do all the damage they want to on those!

You can also see the plant 4, skip 2, plant 4 strategy ~ 4 rows of 75-day Ambrosia, 2 rows just for breathing room, and 4 rows of 85-day Incredible.  The next round will be planted somewhere around 5 – 7 May, if I remember correctly.  Then, it will be plant 6, skip 2, plant 6.  And, Husbie’s corn planting fun will then be over.  That’s okay, though, really.  By then, he’ll be up to his eyeballs tending the alfalfa field.

And, since the little dog has to do everything the big dog does ~ here’s Abigail practicing her hunting and guarding skills.  She’s got her eye on a fat robin out there making a nice meal out of some fresh worms.

In other gardening news…

Back on 10 April, we picked the first spears of asparagus.  We’re delighted to see that all but one of the ‘new’ plants we planted last year survived the winter and are producing nearly as heartily as those that are now in their second year of production.

We’d like to have a total of approximately 32 asparagus plants ~ a recommended amount for an average family of four.  We have 17 plants already established.  Darling Husbie purchased 20 additional plants, so while he was broadcasting the fertilizer on the alfalfa field one evening, I reworked three of the 4′ x 4′ squares turning them into a long rectangle along side the existing asparagus bed, making two identical beds with two rows of plants in each.  It was finally nice enough to plant them last Monday.  [This is the square foot garden.  It's where we've got the perennials ~ asparagus and strawberries.  We'll be adding a few artichoke plants this year.]

I’ve promised the ‘aspara-gizzles’ that I would be more faithful this year when it comes to fertilizing.  I’ve already fertilized them twice, which is two times more than last year.   From the looks of things, the aspara-gizzles are really enjoying the boost and are shooting spears of gratitude out of the ground like crazy.  I hope they continue for quite some time!

I spent some time this weekend plotting out the plan for one of the 6,000 sf rectangles.  It will hold the potatoes, okra, broccoli, eggplant, onions, tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, dried beans, garden beans, cowpeas, snap peas and Brussels sprouts.  We’ll be doing some staking and planting in there this week.

The other 6,000 sf rectangle will hold all the cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash and winter squash.  I have yet to plot out exactly what will go where, but I have some time yet before any of those plants will go in ~ still waiting for the last frost and for the soil to warm up some more.

The watermelons and cantaloupe are going in a new ‘bed’ Darling Husbie tilled on the edge of the slough near the alfalfa field.  The soil is more sandy there, so we’ll see if they do better this year.  Both years past, the plants have produced ample melons, but the quality hasn’t been all that great.  At any rate, the melons won’t be taking up valuable space in the garden plots.  If they do good this year, then we’ll have a luscious summertime snack.  If they don’t, then no worries, you know?

The pumpkins don’t have a surefire home yet.  I’ll have to get the second rectangle plot mapped out to see if they can live there, or if Husbie will have to till them a special place somewhere else.  Space is certainly not an issue, and neither is convincing Darling Husbie he needs a little more ‘seat time.’  So, we’ll see.

I would have never dreamed in a million years, back when I was feebly trying to pamper those pathetic tomato plants in containers on our Arizona back patio, that I’d be planning and plotting such amazing food plots ~ and in Nebraska, no less.

God’s plans are always better than my own! ♥

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