What did you do in the garden today?

[NanaKat]

Yes, it was just last week or so his house burned. Sad.

Please: Get you a lock/bolt cutter to keep handy. Maybe prepack some things you can't bear to lose (family heirlooms, pictures) and copies of important papers, a change of clothing, basic supplies like you'd take on a long road trip. Keep vehicles gassed up. The less time you have to spend getting out, the more time to get away. I've had to bug out from flooding. Trust me when I say there's never enough time.

I'll be keeping you and everyone out that way in my thoughts.

Great advice! Been there and done that too.
We do this during both drought fire season and tornado season.
In addition to things you suggested, I have a box for my tax file system with receipts for the farm and other deductibles, medical files, computer passwords, an extra set of charging cords for phones and iPad. A big envelope holds the newest seed packets for the garden.
There is a box for Roger's CPAP and supplies. And a box with easy open food and diabetic drinks and a gallon bag of dog food, flashlight and batteries.
These are the things I load. Roger loads the guns and ammo and the animal vet boxes. Then he unlocks the many gates so the fire department doesn't have to drive over the gates (although they will drive over the barbwire fences) and during fire season he makes sure the chicken and duck pens are opened.
We have 250 acres divided into 8 pastures running 100 momma cows with bulls. There are 4 main bird pens and 6 more during breeding season.
We have had two fire scares and too many tornado close calls.
This is haying time here. Several years ago during a really severe drought/fire threat when the 5x6 hay bales were selling for $85, I bought insurance for the hay....we feed between 700 to 900 bales a year. We also had a nutcase setting fires on country roads around us.

 

[NanaKat]

Yesterday in the garden, I tied up three beds of tomatoes and a bed of peppers, put out rat poison in cottage cheese cartons in the cucumber, melon and squash beds. We pulled the rest of the onions. And put down the coon in the live trap that had been raiding my pens.

Today, I'll finish trying up the peppers and the tomatoes. I'll prep and plant beans in the finished onion and dill
boxes. I have 1 inch chicken wire two foot wide that I will put around the two boxes and stake with bamboo.

A friend of ours was the construction supervisor when the OKC Zoo had a renovation a few years ago. Thanks to him, I was able to get some Golden Bamboo that was being tossed. We now have a 16 x4 box bed filled with that bamboo. I make stakes and cane poles each year so I have a ready source.

 

[jvls1942]

good morning,

we had a nice rain last night.

yesterday I weeded about a 20 foot section at the end of my 190 foot long tomato row. where the tomato sets didn't take.
then I took Ollie (my Oliver tractor)
and put the hiller attachment on and made a nice continuous hill.
I have a short row of tomato plants that I will rob from and put them into the long row.

I really enjoy reading where you folks are from. I envy you people south of me especially.
our growing season is so short up here in the "Nort".
and to make the matter worse, our planting window was put back by a couple of weeks due to our constant rain.
I have furrowing attachments and hilling attachments and harrowing attachments for Ollie, none of which I could use because the garden was so wet.
so DD and I ended up planting 80 tomato plants the hard way,,,,,in the mud..
it took 23 days for my potatoes to finally sprout..
my beans are doing very well, and the sweet corn did make it up to
"knee high by the 4th of July"
(and so are the weeds)
........jiminwisc.....

 

[NorthTexasWink]

Oh my @NanaKat ! What a lot to keep up with. As for bug-out packing, I could go on and on. I used to have a trailer with a huge wooden box my dad had built for our long camp outs. It had swing-out and fold-out doors, drawers, cubbies for all the camp stoves, lanterns, tents, sleeping bags, fishing gear, whatever. It really was pretty ingenious! Dad was always very good at that engineering and building stuff. After I inherited "The Mobile Campsite", I made it my own with fresh paint (purple) and my must-haves. It served me well until last year, when I decided my brother in Lubbock needed it more than I did. His boys are still young and they all go camping a lot, both with and without their Boy Scout groups. "The Mobile Base Camp" is now green with the BoyScount trefoil painted on it. I keep thinking I need to build myself another one, more tailored to my own needs now. Someday.

 

[NorthTexasWink]

@jvls1942 You've bern busy! I hear you about the rain. I hate to bad mouth rain, because I just know I'll be praying for it a little later this year. But yeah, I've had enough for now.

I'm starting on my second planting season down here. Setting out tomatoes, peppers, beans, late squash, maybe more carrots, cabbage (mostly as pest traps), and whatever else comes to mind. Probably start on those tomorrow if the ground dries enough. Only have 1 1/2 raised beds free for them yet.

I do sow lettuce and cabbage and a couple of other things to give the bugs something more attractive than my food crops to munch on. Those I can rip out before they complete their life cycles and let them rot in water to kill the pests and create fertilizer at the same time. When my chicks become hens, they will probably take on the trap crop disposal and pest killing duties.

 

[CapricornFarm]

I went out to find a board to finish the brooder with, and pulled one off the pallet. While it was drying in the sun, i checked out the garden. The first batch of beans have flowers on them! Three out of four tomato plants have grown over the top of their cages, and the latest peas i planted are coming up! Pulled some vines in the new flower bed area, and made holes for more gladioli and vinca. Once the sun moves around and i bring up some buckets of sand, i will plant. Getting ready for lunch, and then time to pin the clothes up on the line. Oh, and my first cherry tomato is ripening up.!

 

[NorthTexasWink]

Realized I hadn't posted pics in a while, so BOOM! Chicks with their first sod today too funny! Some harvest pics. And cantaloupe way up high is filling out. Going to need a ladder to harvest that one. And now I once again have a use for my old stockings that I haven't worn in years.

 

[CapricornFarm]

OMG, i went outside and sat in the chair to put my shoes on and suddenly i was trying to cling to the big log that holds up the overhang on our porch. But it was too hard to grip and so i tumbled chair and all off of the porch and onto the ground! I lay there for a minute trying to assess the damage. I have some tender but not broken ribs and some skin missing around my left forearm near the elbow , where it will be bruised. But overall not too bad. My husband came out a minute later to see what the noise was. Nothing dear, just falling around in a drunken state without drinking!

 

[NorthTexasWink]

@CapricornFarm Good grief! Please be careful! I recommend taking a dose of over the counter anti inflammatory pain med, like a Tylenol or Aleve. You'll be sore and swollen soon. And ice to minimize bruising, swelling, pain.

 

[CapricornFarm]

Thanks, good idea. Funny, my first thought was to get a good dose of chocolate. And then off to work on the garden and put some more paint on that board. If you keep moving, less likely to stiffen up. At least i didn't have to stitch myself up again like i did in TN. I was trying to trim goat hooves out in the pasture with sharp hoof shears and the goat yanked her foot while i was holding it near my leg. It ripped my leg open, but i did not let the goat get away with it and continued cutting hooves. My neighbor showed up just then and almost passed out when she saw the blood running down my leg. I really didn't want to spend hours in the ER waiting and i knew my tetanus shot was up to date. So we went up to the house and i sewed myself up while she looked the other way. My husband was impressed, said he didn't know if he could do that to himself.