The garden is planted and I cannot wait until I have fresh, organic vegetables and eggs, free from antibiotic dosed chickens! I must give a big "Thank You" to Danny Thornton for all his help with this garden; you will definitely be the recipient of its bounty! The last part of my garden was completed on Monday when I picked up eleven Buff Orpington chicks from Daniel Farm Supply in Sale Creek, Tennessee (just outside Chattanooga). That's right...chickens!
These are the baby chicks! They are about 2-4 weeks old and occupy a seperate part of the garden. Their enclosure is the taller portion at the back of the garden! It is approximately six feet deep and twenty-four feet long and is fully enclosed by chicken wire! I learned from the chickens I had in Florida that any chicken pen must be fully enclosed to protect them from raccoons and chicken hawks! They have a heat lamp to keep them warm for about the next week or two, then they will be mature enough to not need it. In about six months they should start producing those fresh brown eggs!
The front part of the garden is a wildflower garden complete with yard gnomes. Today I added a birdbath in hopes of attracting butterflies, birds, and bees! I surrounded the wildflower garden with railroad ties and covered the newly plowed earth with a black mesh cloth in hopes of cutting down on the weeding. I applied the garden soil on top of the mesh and mixed in a few bags of cow manure. I spread a couple of bags of mixed wildflower seeds and was done! You can click HERE to visit an eHow post by Danny Thornton that tells you how to plant your own wildflower garden! You can see in the picture below some of the flowers coming up already; it has been about two weeks!
As for the main part of the garden, the veggies! This ground was plowed by a neighbor at the same time he plowed the wildflower part! Because there is lots of wildlife in Tennessee including, deer, chipmunks, raccoons, rabbits, even bear, I used vinyl lattice made from recycled plastic, pressure treated 4 x 4's set in quick setting concrete, and two foot high chicken wire on the inside of the lattice to surround the garden itself. There are also baskets of marigolds hanging on the posts around the vegetable garden to discourage the wildlife that might be tempted to graze on the young veggies; deer don't like the smell of marigolds! As we get regular rains here, I do not have to water often and the same black mesh I used in the wildflower garden serves a dual purpose here; to keep the weeds out and to help keep the moisture from evaporating too quickly! I can hardly wait for the vegetables to be laden with their bounty; eight types of tomatoes, two types of corn, squash, zucchini, four different types of peppers, eggplant, three types of beans, peas, honeydew, cantelope, watermelon, carrots, raddishes, potatoes, okra, spinach, onions, and two types of lettuce!
As the garden will produce far more than I, my friends, and family will be able to use, I have located our local 
that will enjoy the bounty as well; that is another post!
About the Author
If you are in the market to purchase a home or even refinance an existing loan and you want a loan officer that will walk with you every step of the way, then contact Danny or Rich of the Thornton Team at Home America Mortgage today. We can have you pre-approval in as little as 4 hours. You can visit our website or send an email to thorntonteam@homeamericamortgage.com or call us @ 865-951-0522.
Rich Dansereau Loan Officer Knoxville TN
Rich, thanks for the kind mention. I still have not gotten over all the soreness of moving those railroad ties.