Farmer MacGregor Strikes Again

The lumber was delivered Friday. Farmer MacGregor was busy sawing Saturday. He’s building supports for the Thorneless Boysenberries.  All of the bare root stock was planted and is now thriving where once azaleas died.

The plan is to create a hedge of boysenberries.  Farmer MacGregor creates supports for tomatoes, squash, beans, and sweet peas in the garden.  This should be no exception to his successes.There is only raw wood, post holes, and a plan.  The final result will be posted here.  Farmer MacGregor’s creation will surpass anything crazy, old Walter Knott came up with.

Photo lifted from http://knottsinprint.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-grow-boysenberries.html

That’s Mr. Knott on the right.

Stringing Tomatoes

Alright.  The Farmer MacGregor series continues today with his creation for tomato supports.  This season I’m growing heirlooms from seed.  Most of the varieties are vines rather than bushes.  I decided to try stringing the plants to be economic with my garden space.  Plans were drawn.  Lumber was ordered.  The beast known as MacGregor was set into motion.  Points were cut on the top of each stake resembling ancient Egyptian obelisks.  Paint (green of course) was applied to all the lumber and metal stakes.  The frames were constructed and screwed into the metal stakes.  There was a lot of measuring, marking, and leveling going on.  The gentle farmer is a stickler for detailed accuracy.  These are the essential tools for construction: A square and a durable marker.

A level.  (MacGregor has several to choose from.)

  Power drill (Snort snort.).

Heavy duty clamps (Don’t let one of these things bite you!).

Also make sure to have a variety of words to use that when spelled look something like this:

F&%K, D@M^ it, $H1zt

Farmer MacGregor is a wordsmith when it comes to using special words to show exasperation.  Noun, verb, adjective – it doesn’t matter.  He’s so skilled he doesn’t even realize what he says sometimes.  Remarkable.

Eye bolts were inserted to the bottom of each stake to string jute.

The jute line helped to mark a nice straight line to plant the tomatoes. 

Once the tomatoes were planted, jute was tied to the top stake and run down to  the jute below to use as a support for the plants.  It’s difficult to see the jute until the tomatoes grow taller.  The photo above was taken on May 11, 2009.  Below is the same tomato bed today.

The western most bed is planted similarly.

Please ignore the make shift shade for the camellias and the lounging garden kitty in the background.

Here’s an Arkansas Traveler starting the trip up the line.  I come out and check the growth progress and wind the plants skyward up the jute.  I believe I might need to trim some of the side branches to encourage growth upward. With the heat turning up, the tomatoes are developing on most all varieties.  This is the same Arkansas Traveler photographed today.  The center stem is quite a bit thicker and fruit is abundant.

The whiskers on the Arkansas Traveler are really profound.

The tomato supports can be dismantled and stored when not needed.  They will probably take up less room than the old wire cages.  So far, I really like them.  The garden is kept nice and neat.

Support Can Be Beautiful

Full figure gal, Jane Russell, hocked Playtex bras to us in the 1970’s telling us that support can be beautiful.  What on Earth does Jane Russell and beautiful support have to do with Maybelline’s Garden?  Well, read on. 

Farmer MacGregor recently set out to make beautiful supports for the Borlotto Solista beans.  They’ve sprouted and will be in need of something to climb soon.The gentle farmer took some lumber scraps and cut pyramid tops to match the rest of his garden structures.  He is known for his painting skills so he painted the support green.  He painted almost all the structures in the garden green. The gentle farmer whipped out his Eagle Scout skills and tied jute to the eye bolts and created a diamond pattern for the beans to enjoy.  The wooden frame is screwed into metal stakes (painted green) to keep the wood out of the dirt and damp.  When the beans have been harvested the jute can be clipped.  The dried vines and jute can be put in the green waste. Old MacGregor is pretty slick.  Ain’t he?

Okay.  The association between Jane Russell’s beautiful support and the beautiful support Farmer MacGregor constructed is a stretch.  Here’s a nice clip as a payoff for making it to the end of this post.

Note:  Ms. Russell has an impressive list of accomplishments.  However, her contribution to beautiful support suits this post.  If Ms. Russell were to even read this post I think I would spin.  What a life she has enjoyed.

1st Tomatoes of the Season

Nope.  This isn’t about strawberries AGAIN.  Today, I noticed the 1st tomatoes of the season.  Al Kuffa is the winner.  Al delivered 1st.  There are five tough bushes all with several tomatoes.   The stem end of the fruit reminds me of fairy caps.  It’s exciting to see the 1st successful tomatoes arrive on the plants grown from seed.  The fruit should be medium sized.   Chives are planted along with the Al Kuffas as companion plants to ward off pests.  This variety comes from Iraq and will no doubt be able to endure all that Bakersfield summers will dish out. Since these are dwarf bushes rather than vine type tomatoes they are supported with old wire cages that have supported many, many tomatoes over the years.  Farmer MacGregor has constructed all the tomato supports for the remaining tomatoes to be strung.  I hope to be able to post about the gentleman farmer’s handy work over the Memorial Day weekend.

Spectacular!

Bird damage control just got cranked up a notch.  The checkout stand at Von’s had a variety of miniature kites for the kiddies on special.  Butterflies, turtles, dragons, and owls once filled a display.  The inventory was reduced to turtles and owls.  For a little over $3, I had something to add to my arsenal of bird detractors.  Perfect.  I snagged an owl to stand guard over the strawberries.  Along with the scare tape, things look fairly good. This little guy is tethered to the post for the squash support.  Strawberries are planted in the cinder blocks that form the bed where squash and watermelon will grow this summer.  The squash is called Squash Lemon and the watermelon is call Malali.  It’s from Israel.  More on those crops another time. Farmer MacGregor was not distracted by Hootie’s bobbing and weaving in the breeze.  The gentle farmer was on a mission to complete the installation of the squash support.  I’ve planted the squash along the right side of the support.  The plants will be trained to grow up the wire.  I will help the blossoms poke through to the other side.  The squash should dangle down on the other side out of the dirt, moisture, and sun.  Pretty cool. Since the area on the left side of the support should be shaded, I may plant beets under there.  I have a few days to decide.  Note the drying rack in the background behind Hootie taking a dive. This evening was nice enough to not only plant the squash and melons, but I planted radishes and onions too.  Then the storm moved in and it rained.  It rained!  This weather is spectacular.