Wow, have you seen the headlines regarding food scarcity, food production facility accidents, lack of fertilizer? Not only have they been in the alternative media, but also they have gone mainstream. Tucker Carlson and Dan Bongino have talked about it. Azure Standard HQ, one of the largest organic food distributors was destroyed by a fire. The Honeyville Company has more out of stock than in stock items. Now just this weekend Indonesia has banned the sale of edible oils i.e., palm oil and probably coconut oils to foreign countries. It is concerning. Not in a hair on fire, what am I going to do fear filled way? But in a calm quiet I am going to get even more self reliant way. OHH and bonus I have little tender lambsquarters coming up. More foraged salads!

Now that I am retired and I have loads of time to work my garden I have decided to expand my garden. Right now it measures 20 feet by 50 feet. It will be 50 feet by 50 feet when I have enclosed the additional ground.  As usual, I went shopping in my outbuildings. I found a roll of four foot high wire fence. It must have been leftover from the first garden fence 12 years ago. Thankfully, it was out of weather and is in great shape. Other than dirt dabber nests which are easily washed off when I unroll the wire, it is in perfect condition.  I also found several T posts to support the new length of fence that will run east/west. I will reuse the existing fence and T posts that currently run north/south. I found wire clips from our barb wire fence fixing activities. I’ll use them to attach the wire to the T post.

We had rain all day yesterday so the next couple of days will be the best time to get the T posts out of the soft ground. That is on my To Do list for this week. I am also able to use rainy days more efficiently since I know I will be at home on the sunny week days to get outdoor chores complete. Just yesterday when it was rainy and cold, I sewed new curtains for my living room. I had that fabric for about six months. The new curtains are hanging and the old curtains are on the west window in my bedroom. Yea! I finally have curtains on that window. It wasn’t a real concern. The closest neighbor is a mile away.

I have been working the existing part of my garden for about a month already. I am trying to push the season.  A 10 foot row of garlic plants are about 7 inches tall. Twenty feet of sweet onions are taller since I bought onion starts instead of just bulbs.  The onions are planted four across. Fingers crossed, I will have a lot of onions in the fall. Currently I am hardening off my seed starts on my back porch. It faces south and it is warm for the starts snuggled up against the house. Last Saturday I weeded 32 feet of welded wire cattle panels I use for pole beans. The yard long green beans and yard long Chinese red noodle do really well on the panels. I top dressed that row with donkey poop (Gomez makes a lot for me), crushed egg shells and Epsom salts. The rain on Sunday did a nice job of watering the additions into the soil. I don’t till the soil. Rather I loosen the ground with a pitch fork and pull the weeds. I haven’t committed to no till yet. I am reading up on that technique. I have 10 feet weeded for my okra plants but I won’t put them in the ground until the end of May or mid June. I need to weed 10 more feet for the okra. Gumbo, fried okra and pickled will be in my future. Okra like very warm soil to flourish. White and blue potatoes are pushing a lot of leaves. I have three 20” pots three fifty pound horse feed sacks with white and blue potatoes. I add more soil to the pots and sacks as the leaves grow up. Some sweet potato slips are on the kitchen window sill growing roots. I should have enough in a couple weeks to get them in the ground.

The asparagus patch needs some of my love. I harvested enough to make a quiche. That is an accomplishment because I have neglect that patch for the past two years. Now I have to put on overalls and denim jacket to cut down the dewberry vines. Ohhhh, I hate those sticker vines. I let a mound of them grow along my driveway. I do like the berries in pies. Unfortunately, they will take over wherever they can.

Two books I have been reading are “Gaia’s Garden, 2^nd edition” by  Toby Hemenway dealing with permaculture and “Biodynamic Gardening” by Monty Waldin. I also blew the dust off “The Edible Flower Garden” by Rosalind Creasy. I have no connections to any of these authors and I do not have any affiliate links on my blog.

I will keep you updated on my progress. My gardening activities has had a negative influence on my cooking and posting recipes but it will work out in the end.