The Garden:
There a lot of things I learned this year gardening…for example…Dont plant Tomatoes next to Corn. Corn inhibits the growth of tomatoes. I found that out firsthand then looked it up in “Tomatoes Love Carrots” a book about companion planting and found it out also.

Regardless, its working its way to the end of July and I have just got my first tomato….pretty bad huh!! Thats the worst I have ever had. They are picking up the production now but they are slowly getting a bloom here and their. Then I got a pest that started cutting the blooms off right after it would bloom and that has cut it down too.

At this point I am in rescue mode to save and recieve some tomatoes this year so I broke out the 7 dust. Yeah I didnt want to use any chemicals but if I didnt I wouldnt have any tomatoes. The horn worms have destroyed one whole plant and have begun to work on the others. Next year I will learn more about organic tomato raising because I thought that I could take care of the horn worms as long as I went out every night and searched for the things….but I quickly found out that every night turned into every other other night. So I got to figure out how to protect the tomatoes without chemicals and for now I will just wash the tomatoes really well before eating.

I still need to make some more cages. But I ran out of money to buy the remesh from the hardware store from buying the other wire at $40 per 50ft roll. But once I get them I dont need to buy anymore for the rest of my life as good as these things are.

I also had trouble with my broccoli and the darn cabbage worms. They have all but destroyed the broccoli. I had been hand picking and squashing the worms every other day and it seemed to be working…until I hit a stretch where I couldnt get to the garden for a week. They multiplied so fast and began to destroy leaves that I thought I will loose them if I keep trying to hand pick the bugs. So out comes the 5% 7 dust for them too!

The Tomatoes and the Broccoli are the only two I have put anything on. The corn, green beans, lettuce, carrots, and onions haven’t been touched by pests.

Are there any organic gardeners out their? Do you have any suggestions. I know I can buy larval praying mantises but I dont know if they take care of worms and if it would even work.

My Corn (Heirloom- Country Gentlemen) is doing impressively well and I have never seen 10 foot tall corn. Most people around here only have 5 to 7 foot corn. This is like a forest!!! I am about to start canning. Most ears are ready for picking but I havent had time to can yet so in order to prevent the sugar in the corn kernals from changing over to starch I am going to wait to pick them when I am ready to can. I should have time sometime soon.

I have started Peas in the corn rows for a fall crop so they can begin to climb the corn stalks. I have been told that they are good fall crop vegies…I dont really know. Fall cropping is new to me. When growing up we just planted once per year…and that was it. However since I am planning on doing farming full time in the distant future I want to start learning whatever it is I need to learn for that now while I dont really have the land to farm full time.

I dug up my potatoes. Next year I plan on weighing my potatoes before planting…with my new digital battery operated scale…because it sure seems like I harvested less potatoes than I planted. I have learned a lot about potatoes. I am going to have to do a lot of things different next year.

The New Barn:
This weekend I began to build a barn…shed…or whatever you want to call it. I am not particularly experienced in building buildings….especially with used wood. I scavaged a bunch of wood from a building that was torn down and used the wood to build a shed for putting garden tools and various equipment.

The shed is still in progress as I will be finishing the tin metal and painting it the same color as the house and putting a door on the main area.

Well thats it! I said I would post again and here it is. I dont know if anyone is reading this but here it is.