John Bolling

Sorry for the delayed update.

Over the last two weeks (really? 2 weeks!?!) I have gotten a lot done, but it has been absolute chaos.

I made signs to go at the end of my rows in my garden, I'll let y'all figure out what I messed up. I didn't notice it, but the 7-year-old did.


I made the frame for the chicken guards for my wife's raised beds. I'm in the process of covering them with bird netting.


My wife's flowers, which keep disappearing because the toddler picks them...


Story Time!
The youngest dog pooped in the kennel and stank up the house, and since I refuse to do it because she is not my dog (every dog has a specific person they listen to more. If I tell her to sit, she sits if it's convenient, but if my wife says it, it's automatic. My dogs are the Lab-Dane and Mastiff-Plot hound. Hers is the Lab-Shepard. My dogs know not to run across the rows in my garden, not to dig, and to just hang out if I'm working out there, hers, not so much. but she is still a good dog.), My wife attached her to a lead in the yard to wash out the kennel. While it dried, we left her outside, it was a nice day, figured let her yell at some squirrels and watch the chickens. Needless to say, the lead was about 18" too long, and she got into my greenhouse and attacked some of the berry bushes, destroyed the entire front of the greenhouse fabric, and broke a couple supports. Hindsight huh? So I got to upgrade from a 20'x10' to a 26'x10', and I got it cheaper than the 20'. It arrived on Sunday, and I spent the night getting it put together and installed. Monday morning, I went through the school drop off line with an empty trailer and arrived back home with a full trailer of pallets and the back of the truck overflowing. This had been my week.

I even built some shelves using wire shelving for laundry rooms and pallet wood.  (toddler for scale)



I also redid the signs. Some are better than others, but it'll work.




Ah, and my tiny Forman. (yea, that's dirt hanging from her mouth and my row marking flags in her hand. She's super helpful.)


Wednesday, we planted the rasp, black, elder, and goji berries. Today I have the Kiwi to do. We also planted two plum, an apple, and a peach tree. And my peas are sprouting pretty well.
I built another compost area to make turning it easier and mixed the topsoil I removed for the greenhouse into the compost. I need to go get more manure and add that into it, but I will probably wait till my wife adds the compost to her raised beds.
In the last two weeks, I filled 1434 cells with dirt and seed, the majority of which is flowers to hopefully ease the task of the girls spreading seeds.

Guess what time it is?!?

Time to sit and wait for the page to load all the photos I'm about to post... enjoy.

I took these at 10:00 today, before my phone died...





Unfortunately, I took out my only fruit producing fig tree in the process.
Story Time!
I used to have 2, but one rotted and was taken out in a thunderstorm. Hurricane Florance took down a tree beside the second one, which had, at some point in its past fallen over, and the newly fallen tree stood it back upright. (Basically, it went from | to |__ to __|) But because this fallen tree was in my way, so I had to cut the rotten roots and trunk to get through, and I accidently clipped the roots of the fig tree, pulling it out of the ground. so, I guess I'll have to work on my 4 other fig trees to get them big enough that I can try to beat the kids to the fruit.

These are from this evening.



As you can see, I didn't go all the way around the property, but instead stopped where the corn and potatoes meet in that corner, this made it easier to make a smooth transition between the path and the cut. Now the berm is a straight line (ish) and the path curves like it did, but if you stayed straight, you'd be in with the berries.

I also put a row in the berry area to try to keep the dogs from messing it up as much.

Corn area


And here are the plants in my greenhouse. The top photo is of the plants I'm selling, the bottom is of the berry bushes.

My wife wishes it would pay more in the $$$ than in the beauty and memories, but that's the price you pay (pun).

On a side note, just to give everyone a heads up, although it may seem obvious, don't run over rebar with a tiller. Even though it is powerful enough to keep going without making a sound, you will spend a long time with an angle grinder and a crowbar. If you didn't know that there was rebar there, that's (I'm assuming) your fault, and you should make a note for next time. If you have to run over rebar, don't do half inch, do something smaller.

The extra plants are a mix of black and raspberry, which have very different plant spacing requirements. That's my only concern.

I got all the T-Posts in, I just need to finish tying the support lines on, spread the yard debris between the rows, plant the peas, finish building the raised beds for my wife (3/4 done), fill them, and finish the area for the berry bushes. Every day this week has felt like a week in itself. I am exhausted.
I received the berry bushes last night (UPS had my address wrong, so I had to go pick them up from the hub after the girls went to bed). I ordered 102 plants but received 124 of them. I'm going to have to call and talk to them today.
I've made some changes to how I want to set up the berm with the plants. Instead of planting on the berm and behind it, I'm working on moving the berm back 5' and allowing myself a flat area to plant in and put the extra on the berm. I didn't plan on this originally, but after (accidently) pushing too far in one spot, I noticed that the soil was super rich under it and decided to just push the whole thing back. I'll post pictures when I have them, but I think it will work out pretty well. The path where the berm was is about 6-12" below grade of the yard, and 5' wide, and since I have it backed up to an earthwork berm, I'm putting in a span or corrugated tubing to help with drainage (I'm not burying it, because I want it to drain naturally over time).

Photo Update!!!
So, Where did I leave off???
Friday, yard waste was dropped off. I spent most of the day trying to clear my driveway, and the rest of it mixing a couple bucket loads into the rows. Had my oldest driving the tractor while I did the gas and tiller stuff. They did a burn to get rid of the stumps from clearing to build a bypass around our town, and as a result had a heavy (couldn't see half a mile) smoke through the town. Apparently, smoke + warm day + me being too busy to vent or turn off the heater in my greenhouse = bad. I registered 135F. Needless to say, I lost almost everything. Here are some before pictures.


Saturday, I set rows and enjoyed some cold weather.
Sunday, I don't remember. Probably the same.
Monday, my wife had her dr. appointments, so I had to watch the kids all day. Junkers wanted to snuggle with me in the morning.

Today, I put T-Posts in. I have managed to lose or use around 100 of them, so instead of the 186 I need, I only have 96. Some quick math, I figured out a way to get the supports in so I can at least plant peas this week, and hopefully in a month or two, we will have enough money to buy some more. (Around $500)


I'm using baler twine this year, so I pull out full rows worth, and make it into a grid to help keep my lines straight (even if my rows aren't). Before I plant, I'm going to go down each row and recenter them, run the support lines (at least the first few) down each row that get them, and spread some of the yard debris (mostly leaves and pine needles) between the rows as a form of mulch. As time progresses, I'm going to alternate layers of compost with the yard debris to help build a richer soil for next year. I was able to spread a little bit of 10-10-10 fertilizer into the rows before I did my final passes on the rows to help the plants a little bit.
Hopefully I will be able to finish the T-Posts tomorrow, as well as till up and level the areas for the root vegetables and path.
I have also been working on a division of the flower seeds for the girl's flower beds. As it stands currently, I have 688.3g of seeds total, with 678.9g set aside for them. I'm thinking something like 10-15 sections, 1'x25', and I'll till it up once a week till Apr 15th and then let them spread them out and rake them over. I figure that they will really enjoy them, as well as provide a lot for pollinators.

I do volunteer work with a community garden, teaching classes to kids, growing plants to sell, tending bees, etc. (the business is run by a friend & fellow vet.) I volunteer in a position that would normally be a paid staff position (I don't need the money and am more than happy to do it. My kids can join to learn and help the other kids there, so occasionally I turn it into a family event). If I could get a cancelled invoice for my services, would that count?
Veterans Employment Basecamp and Organic Garden

They delivered the yard waste today. This morning actually. I had just gotten back from dropping my daughter off at school, made myself a bagel, sat down, and all in time to say, "What the hell is that sound?" It was their garbage truck... NO BREAKFAST FOR JOHN!
The pile was about 20'x12'x10' tall. I was not expecting THAT much, but it was already steaming so I had to get started on it before it got too hot (most of it had been sitting in the truck all week, so it was pretty warm is some spots. Given that it was mostly dried dead grass (who cuts their dead grass in the winter?!?) and pine needles, I didn't want to see how hot it would get). They dumped it in our second driveway, so all I had to do was push it over the ledge and into my garden. I spent the whole day raking it with the bucket on the tractor to pull out the large sticks (and a Christmas tree???), and then spreading out the small stuff when I would run out of room. I have done about 2/3rds of the pile so far. Also, I had to stop today because my tractor was overheating, the dust from the pile had clogged up on my radiator, so the tractor got washed for the second time in it's life today.
Wife has gone to the gym, Walmart, and to grab Chinese food, so I have to be inside to watch the girls. I kind of wish I wasn't trying to run 100 mph all day, but rain on Sunday so I'm trying to get it into the garden and settled before then, otherwise it will take me twice as long to move.
On a side note, making rows, tilling the top of the row to throw dirt into the pathways has been successful at fixing some of the pothole puddle spots as well as firm up the ground in those areas.
And finally, I'm sorry, no pictures today. The forestry service is doing a "Controlled" burn today, so the entire town was in a dense layer of smoke (eyes burn, throat burns, I'm dirty as hell and smell like I've been standing above a camp fire that was buring wood covered in tar). Hopefully they will get it under control and out by tomorrow.

I wouldn't mind doing the whole area, and if it succeeds, awesome, if it doesn't produce any, it wouldn't be much of a loss because at least it added organic material to the soil.

So, this is what is going in my garden this year:

1. Bean, Kentucky Wonder
2. Beet, Detroit Dark Red
3. Cucumber, Soyolong
4. Eggplant, Black Beauty
5. Pea, Green Arrow
6. Pepper, California Wonder
7. Pepper, Keystone Resistant Giant (TMR)
8. Radish, Cherry Belle
9. Squash, Black Zucchini
10. Squash, Golden Zucchini
11. Squash, Table Queen
12. Squash, Waltham Butternut
13. Tomato, Beefsteak
14. Tomato, Burpee Big Boy Hybrid
15. Tomato, Litchi
16. Tomato, Patio F1 Hybrid
17. Turnip, Purple Top White Globe
18. Carrot, Chantenay Red Core
19. Cucumber, Early Green Cluster

I'm actually cutting back on tomatoes this year, but everything except for the root vegetables has 75' length total, in 25' increments. I was thinking of putting spores under the tomatoes and cucumber plants and allowing it to spread to the squash, peas, and beans, while not putting any near the root vegetables (maybe not even putting chips in the area until they are established).

So this forces me to make a decision, do I want mushrooms or do I want break down?
The rows are 3' on center, and I usually only use 6" of that. I wouldn't be able to get the tractor or any rolling tools in between the rows after the support structure goes in (which is pretty much every row). I'll have to do some thinking on this.

I ran up a draft on excel of what it would look like having the spore points positioned in each row.

Spore starting points are 6" apart. Red - Supports, Yellow - Plant, Blue - Spore location, colors in between are mixes of the two of the three.