Garden: Planted!

The garden is officially planted! Saturday, we had the jóvenes (middle/high school aged kids) from Vida Nueva come and help us get the seedlings planted. Now, we're just praying that everything continues to grow and the Ranch can get some veggies out of it :)

Thorns

There are about 10 of these thorn bush plants that are surrounding the area where the garden is (not to mention the multitude of them growing on the property of the Ranch). About 8 of those are actually in the way of us being able to firmly secure the structure to the ground. Last week, Ian and I spent a few days trying to figure out how we were going to get these suckers out of the ground. The tricky thing about these plants is that, while they may look small and not that difficult to get out of the ground, they are all connected to or growing out of a stump of some kind. Once we started to dig around the stumps, we discovered their complex and extensive root system. Over the next day or so, I started to uncover the roots, thinking maybe we could just dig them out. I soon discovered that it would be a long, back-breaking process. The roots not only extend and twist in all directions, they get to a point about 2-3 feet from the base of the plant where they plummet deep into the ground. I'm talking vertical growth.

We decided the best plan is to soak the ground to loosen the roots and pull them out using the jeep. First, we did not have anything strong enough for pulling them out. The strap that we had broke easily. So, we bought a steel cable and attachments. This seemed to work a little bit better, but the stump only budged a little bit. Then, the problem was that we did not have a strong enough hook for the jeep. The one we had purchased bent and came off of the car, with the steel cable still wrapped around the stump.
Hopefully this week, we will have better luck! We will be keeping you updated :)

Thought I'd give a little update with a picture of the plants! We are planning on having them ready to be put in the planters by the end of the week. We need to finish getting the irrigation hooked up and securing the chicken wire frame at the bottoms. Then, we can have soil delivered and get to planting!

This is what we have spend the last few days working on at the Ranch. Thanks to some help from one of the staff and some of the older kids, we were able to get the trench dug. Then we got all of the piping connected.

 And successfully got water flowing!