First planting of the season!!! WAHOO!!!

So I set out to plant some peas today. I didn't have much time and needed to get two 30' rows from bare ground to in the ground and watered. I had a "helper" who wanted to bring another assistant along with him. I kindly declined the assistant's help (the dog). However he was REALLY ready to get into the garden...a place in which I have been rather protective of since we put up the fence so as to NOT disturb the soil before planting since I had tilled it...oh.....about a million times! Then a million more with poo. "Don't step in the dirt" was a very common phrase coming out of my mouth for the whole afternoon.

So we set out...he on one end of the garden "raking" it to perfection for some later date, while I to work on the peas. So I put steaks on the ends of both rows with lines run between them to mark where the peas would be planted. This was done after I had raked the area to a nice level plane. Then I took my nifty "row hoe" as I'll call it...it looks like a hoe in the shape of a piece of pie. This dug a trench for me to put my pea seeds into. I read on the KSU research and extensions website that you're supposed to plant them 1-2" apart...for 30' that's alot of seeds...for those of you who are mathematically challenged that's 180-360 seeds per row and 360-720 total! LOTS OF SEEDS! Here's a pic. See how nice and straight and neat they are?

Then I packed them down and built my trellis. I had T-posts driven in-between the two rows then I had 3 10' long 2x4s that I lashed to them. In those 2x4s I had nails about ever 8-12" sticking out of them. I then created a grid with my line to create the trellis for the peas to grow on. Rather inexpensive if I do say so myself!

Then I had to water of course, I don't have my drip system in yet, so I had to use a fan sprinkler to water them with. I do however have the system on order and it should be here within a week. You will of course hear all about it when it gets here. To help with the watering and the drip system, Pop is getting the well working again so that we can use the well water to run to the garden! YAY...today the electrician was here getting well house power. Now all we need is to get the pump a goin'. Here soon we'll have the garden running on all gears...it's kinda weird to finally have some seeds in the ground and some plants actually starting to come up.

The last thing is that the eldest buckaroo and I prayed over the peas and asked that God would bless the garden, the peas, and all the plants that would be planted in there. We asked that he would bless the people who work on it, the people who eat the food it provides and the animals who eat what's left (the chickens). How cool to get my 3 year old talking to the LORD ALMIGHTY about our garden!

Jeremiah 29:5-6 This is the LORD talking...

"Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease."

How cool...