3 COOL THINGS-BACK YARD PROJECT-FIRE ANT EXPERIMENT-FIRST GREENS

Dad came over with the help of John and set my new posts in concrete. These are the corners of the new fencing and new gates and this is making me very excited.

If you look at these photos you can see the tiny white star shaped flowers growing
in the grass. So springy

New chicken yard gate posts:










Here I am standing at the back left corner of the new chicken yard.




Here I am standing at the corner post of the new chicken yard looking at the chicken house. The two posts by the pink flag are the posts for the new gate that dad is building tomorrow.




Here are my new garden raised beds. I have them place near my back door.





I feel that being right by the back door, I will be able to work it even after dark as I will replace the flood light here, and it is convenient.

Here is a side view. The post on the right is the corner. The two posts behind the trash can are the posts for the new garden gate that dad is building tomorrow. The hot tub is the corner of the kitchen garden. So beds will be run the whole rear of the house down. The cedar tree is going away.




I will be looking for people who have torn down old fences and will be using the old pickets to make the kitchen garden fence. I will be planting some kind of vining flowering plant on these posts. It will attract beneficial insects.

While I was out surveying my multiple projects, I decided to go check out the rear garden. I have been so busy I hadn't looked at it all weekend and wow. Remember these were planted right before out 12 inches of snow so they as new plants were covered. This is what they loved I guess. Because they are thriving. I picked a whole grocery sack full of fresh collard greens.





I brought them in and washed them:




I chopped them and added them to my wok with a little hot oil and fresh garlic and at the end added a little soy sauce. Oh my goodness this is wonderful and I enough for two more meals.




Before all of this I finally started my fire ant experiment. I had steeped vermi comost tea for a couple of weeks and then mixed in molassas and home made orange oil. I flagged a large ant hill and drenched the ants with this.

The theory is that the orange oil damages their exoskeleton, the compost tea brings in bacteria that will attack the ants through this damage and the molassas feeds the beneficial bacteria.

I will keep you up to date as I check and see if this works.