Pastures and House Lawn,  Pastures, Gardens and House Lawn

The Garden of Needin’, our first food garden.

April 12, 2020 /
  • Just after completion.
  • Evolving…
  • Old rotten gate to coop.
  • Parts of which were reusable for cross braces on garden gate.
  • New gate to coop.
  • Posts in.
  • She loves it!
  • Installing chicken wire below ground.
  • In use with snap peas.
  • Snap pea arbor.
  • “Coop de Grace”
  • April 2020
In October, after renovating the house&pastures and setting up the first cactus greenhouse, we put in the first enclosed food garden. It is attached to the chicken coop that came with the property, and it grew from a trial row of plants Ma put in to another row, then another and before a week was out we ended up with a large square enclosure. I rebuilt and repurposed old lumber for the coop and garden doors, and we put our backs into laying posts and securing wire fence topped with bamboo. Chicken wire partially buries around the base of the fence has kept our huge resident wild rabbit out. Black Cow manure blended into each row with periodic addition of fish emulsion has yielded a lot of tasty greens! The partial shade from the oak has helped retain moisture, and we’ll just keep adding compost each year for richer beds. The chickens (Ma’s dinosaurs) love the scraps from spent plants and older leaves, giving us eggs and fertilizer in return.
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James V. Freeman is an established visual artist (oil painting) with a deep interest in natural history, plants and farming. He has had numerous solo shows, a solo museum show, an upcoming museum show and his work has been featured in many publications to date. He currently has a studio in Williston, Fl at the family farm and homestead, "Cactus Island", and as a farmer, specializes in growing columnar cacti of the Caribbean and Gulf countries as well as the aquatic Madegascar Lace Plant. James and his mom Sharon manage and develop the permaculture homestead.

Cactus Island Nursery