A Well Protected Garden

One of the most important aspects of growing a garden is garden protection. In these turbulent times, one cannot be too careful when it comes to keeping thieves out of the garden. In this area, two of the most persistent garden pests are rabbits and gypsies.

These two garden thieves have a lot in common. Both are covered in hair, both will eat sugar snap peas before they get very far out of the ground, and neither have souls.

In order to protect against rabbits and gypsies, I've used 2 foot tall chicken wire and 5 foot tee-posts. My neighbor must have been having a problem with persistent gypsies because he ran electric fence around his. I hope I do not have to resort to this!

Garden - March 23, 2011

After planning, replanning, and then planning some more, I realized that a single garden plot of 17 x 34 was not going to be big enough to grow everything I wanted to grow. Actually, it's barely big enough to grow my peppers and tomatillos. So Monday and Tuesday I tilled a second garden patch. This one is 14 x 26 and went in where Lowell cut down my dead pecan tree and opened up some sun shine in the back yard. Henceforth the new garden patch will be referred to as the West Gardens and the old garden patch (for the peppers and tomatillos) will be referred to as the East Garden.

Here is the West Garden:



Yesterday I planted 180 onions (red and yellow)



In order to maximize production in a small space, I'm going to follow the loose square foot garden model. Today I got out and roped off my squares and walking paths



And today I got to plant spinach

Planting Time at Lawrence Manor

One of the things I love the most about living in a small town is that the real estate is dirt cheap. We bought a house on 2 city lots with 6 producing pecan trees and a sweet storm cellar which doubles as a prayer cave complete with icons and candles for less than a down payment on an apartment in the city (seriously, just because you call it a "condo" and pay a bunch of money for it doesn't change the fact that you just bought an apartment). After finding myself under 30 years old and already part of the landed aristocracy (remember the good old days when you had to be a man and own land to vote? and people wonder why the country is going down-hill these days...) I set myself to making my land productive.

Last year I threw together a garden rather quickly in May. At least, I think it was in May. The plants I bought from the green house were on clearance, so it was almost too late to plant. I grew tomatoes and peppers along with oregano. Most of the tomatoes went rotten and the oregano never got harvested, but I did manage to can 30 pints of jalepeno peppers and dry around 6 dozen cayennes.

This year I am going to be much more methodical in planting my garden, and I am going to document it here on my blog (I figure this is a much more productive way to spend my blogging energies than pontificating on things "spiritual" or worse, entering into the raging internet debates between the neo-reformed inquisition and those of us who aren't crazy).

Here's the goal for the year:
75 pints of pickled jalepenos (I need a pint a week just for myself)
52 pints of pickles (normal and hot variety)
30 pints of salsa
and maybe another 30 of pasta sauce

As for exactly what I'm planting this is a rough run down:
Asparagus
Broccoli
Brussels Sprouts
Basil
Garlic
Green Beans
Lettuce
Onion
Peppers - 2 varieties of Jalepeno, Red Habanero, and Ceyenne, and maybe Bells
Snap Peas
Spinach
Tomatillos
Tomatoes

To cram all these plants into such a tight space, I'm going to use a variation of the square foot gardening method which I like to think of as "clump planting." It's not pretty, but it works :) I'm also going to save some space by planting my green beans and snap peas along the fence which I've put up for the dogs. This may not work all that great, but I'm going to need room for 3 dozen pepper plants so space is valuable.

My garden space is roughly 34' x 17'. I'm going to surround it with chicken wire to keep the rabbits out (although I will most likely give a good chunk of my salad harvest to them). I also may run electric fence around it to keep the deer and gypsies out.

The weather was exceedingly beautiful Saturday, so I went ahead and did a first tilling. Here's what things look like as of March 13, 2011:

Do you ever wonder...

There are 2 S's in Superfluous.

But there is only 1 in Asinine.

This is a mysterious universe in which we live.

How Sweet the Sound

Trolling around the internet this morning, I found this article: http://tv.ign.com/articles/114/1147540p1.html

That's right, Beavis and Butthead are coming back to MTV! I am reminded that there is a God in heaven, and He loves us very much.

Do you ever wonder...

Do you ever wonder how Honi the Circle Drawer got his name? I just stumbled across this guy while reading Craig Keener's John commentary. I suppose I could search him up on Wikipedia, but where's the fun in that?

I like to think that Honi the Circle Drawer was antiquity's "North Carolina Camel Jockey." The NCCJ was a name graffitied on the walls of bathroom stalls at truck stops all across the country 20 years or so ago. I learned about him as I was going on trips with my dad in his semi truck during summer break when I was 12 years old or so. After going trucking with dad during those summers, I developed a love for bathroom graffiti which endures to this day.

So in my mind, you could have been traveling around in Honi's day and have to make a pit stop behind a rock or tree to do your business and as you're passing the time you look over and there's a circle drawn on the rock and you say, "Honi has been here!"

Honi probably got in trouble when he was growing up and still in school. After the second or third time he was sent home from school for carving circles in his desk, the name just stuck.

America, Israel, and Illegal Immigrants

Living in the Bible Belt, I've bumped into a lot of people who seem to think that America is God's chosen nation much like Israel (and Judah) was God's chosen nation in the Old Testament. I hate to rain on everyone's parade, but I have to thoroughly and vigorously disagree with this presumption. When we treat America as if it were some kind of 20th and 21st century "Promised Land" with the status of God's favorite nation, at best we are cheapening the Gospel and at worst we are flat misrepresenting it.

It seems to me like the prosperity enjoyed by the United States over the last 60 years has had more to do with the fact that pretty much the entire Western world, excepting the U.S., was bombed into oblivion in WW 2 thus giving the U.S. a huge economic advantage and putting us in the position to manufacture and sell goods to the world without much real competition. At this point I suppose you could interject that the destruction experienced in Europe in WW 2 was in some way God's judgment, but that would make you much more presumptuous than me.

But let me play along with everyone for a moment. Let's pretend that America somehow has replaced Israel as God's chosen nation. I heard this on NPR this morning. Apparently the private prison industry has been lobbying law makers in the Southwestern United States to crack down on illegal immigrants. If this were to happen, these private parties in the prison industry could make a lot of money by imprisoning the illegal immigrants in question.

Well America, I know you know this, being God's chosen nation and all, but for the sake of redundancy let me remind you of Leviticus 19:33-34

"When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God."

I would also remind you (again I know you know this, being God's chosen nation and all that), of all the warnings spoken through the prophets concerning God's impending judgment because of the way Israel mistreated the aliens in their land (for example: Jeremiah 7:5-7; 22:2-4; Ezekiel 22:7, 29; Zechariah 7:9-10; Malachi 3;5).

But that's just me speaking theoretically. I mean, America isn't really God's chosen nation any more than Switzerland or the Democratic Republic of Congo is God's chosen nation. Because the whole point of Christ's coming was to fulfill God's mission of reconciliation given to Israel (Gen 12:1-3), and to open the door for people of all nations to become part of the people of God (1 Peter 2:10). And that's the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!