Lot’s of activity has been happening here at HEP. Southern Highlands has started planting their raised bed gardens, and one of the consumers/clients named Teddy gave the whole group a lesson on planting. He planted onions, corn, beans, and lettuce. He instructed the rest of the consumers on how far apart and how deep to plant each seed. He had to realigned his rows a couple times to get them how he wanted them. I swear he has the magic touch, he now has quite a lot of growth happening.

For some reason, we are having a hard time with tomatoes! We started from seeds, they would grow for a limited amount of time then just die. We started all over with some plants, and we got a cold snap and the plants all turned yellow. They are greening back up, so we are hoping for the best. We planted over 150 plants, with 5 different varieties, If they all grow, we will have a ton of tomatoes.

Our tiller that we have been using for our participants and to finish out our spots has become unusable.  It threw a rock and broke the engine casing. Thank God for warranties, we should have it up an running again in no time. We are thankful that we only have one spot left to be tilled, and that is in our food pantry garden.

Our lettuce is just about ready to be picked, and so are our first batch of onions. We received our sweet potato slips yesterday and will be planting them immediately.  Our beans and peas are ready to be trellised, and the corn is doing great.

Liquid Fence is the way to go if you have to contend with deer and rabbits, just learn from me and mix it outside! That stuff is vile! Neem oil is taking care of our ant and other bug issues, only one bean plant has been eaten.

We were thinking of using bamboo for trellising, has anyone tried this and had good results? We have stands of it growing in the area and can get it free. Any input would be appreciated.

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