I'm thinking, looking at 10 day forecasts, and considering historical weather dates, that this morning may be the last freeze/frost of the year. Soil temps are high enough I don't fear lack of germination. The refugee's got a 3'x20' (1x6.5 meters )section turned yesterday. I can't let them run the tiller yet, they have barely learned about lawn mowers! Anyway, cabbage and Kale sets will be in the ground tomorrow. Bean rows and cucumber fence will be laid out and put up this week. Leaf lettuce into the deck boxes today, head lettuce and spinach in a couple of weeks. I may even grow mustard again and am willing to try collards. These folks like green leafy vegetables. I may only be able to work at half speed, but, we'll get it done! Oh yeah, the asparagus has been completely weeded for the first time in two years. (25' foot row/8 meters)
FBG, you are a gardening saint, even at half speed! How wonderful for the refugees to have good productive work to do. Collards are a cool season green--you may want to hold off until late summer/early fall to plant collards. How about Swiss Chard now? That stuff grows like mad, tastes good (unless you ask my husband) and can be eaten cooked or raw. What do you use for the cucumber fencing? I tried stakes with hemp string one year, and the cukes ate it, spit it out, and then ran rampant over the rest of the garden!
Miss Jane, I'm no Saint. I'm a irascible old man with a poor temper! For tomato cages, pea fence, and cucumber fence, I use standard pasture fencing. We called it sheep wire back home when I was a kid. Smaller openings at the bottom graduating to larger almost square openings at the top. I use 48" fencing. T-posts and zip ties hold it up for a season anyway. It ain't cheap stuff, I usta ask farmers for it when I saw a roll laying around the edge of a field.
Aha! That is called pig fencing here, and I'm sure it would work better than my hemp strings (shoot, spaghetti would work better!). I'm going to scour the neighboring farms for some of it. No need to buy if you can "liberate" something unused! T-posts and cable ties I have (and yes, I purchased them and didn't "liberate" them!)
