Month: March 2021

Today, according to the CDC, it is safe for me to be out in the world again, still with some precautions. Safe to give my fully vaccinated daughter a hug, safe to go in a store, still masked. We took off to Lowes and replaced the dishwasher that failed during the pandemic and arranged to have it delivered and installed in about a week. It will be nice to have that appliance again. Between the extra handwashing, dishwashing, and garden, my hands are a dry mess.

From Lowes we went by Daughter’s house, as she is working from home and her kiddos are getting virtual classes this year, and I got my hug and a conversation without a mask on. What a simple pleasure.

Another load of raised bed soil was purchased and because I didn’t want to rearrange the pile of heavy wood again, the 4 x 4 box that I failed to bring wood down for, was replaced with a commercial metal one. It is assembled, filled, the remaining bagged soil added to some of the other beds as amendment or fill soil to be topped off with more of the soil from the excavation of the upper 1/3 of the garden to dig in the two 4 x 8 beds when I can comfortably bend and tote, probably next week after the several days of rain showers pass. This evening, the onions and peas will be planted. I am considering adding a couple more blueberry bushes to the area where they planted because the box they are in has deteriorated and really isn’t needed as long as I keep the area mulched, so I can expand outward. That requires a trip to the nursery to see what they have. Lowes had some, but I prefer the ones from the nursery if they are in. The heavy joist board that I cut yesterday and left in the yard because I was just too tired to move them again were moved into the garden beside where they will be built. The rest of the scraps cleaned up and the tractor put away for now.

I’m pleased with the progress that has been made this week. I need more cardboard so I can finish mulching the bottom 2/3 of the garden. While I was working I did remove the straw mulch from the asparagus bed and got it weeded too. The photos, just don’t show how much slope this garden has. Once the remaining two boxes are dug in and built and the rest of the mulch laid, there will be a clean up of barrel staves and bands and rotting cedar boards from the old boxes. The new box looks so out of place with the rebuilt ones, but it is metal and won’t rot or rust.

Though we still have frost days ahead, I think the deep freeze days are past, so the fig was unwrapped. We will wait and see if it produces new leaves showing it survived the winter.

The rain showers in the forecast will provide me with a few days of rest from heavy garden work. Only one more day of it is ahead. I am pleased with the sprouts that are showing, more goodies to be planted in the gardens in the coming weeks and healthy food from our garden in the near future.

The little chicks are growing fast and going through their food and water quickly. The first batch are now more than 3 weeks old and getting feathers, trying out their wings. The 2 week old ones looks so much smaller as the older ones legs are stretching out like teenagers, no longer the cute few day old chicks.

It has been a productive day with some seed planting to be done after dinner, then a couple days rest before I finish the garden set up for the year.

After a sleep is optional night, I got up fairly early and decided to continue on the garden quest. As I lay in bed not sleeping last night, I decided to combine more of the boxes on the uphill end of the garden. They were rotting away, so this morning, I built a 4 x 4′ box in front of the asparagus but moved it downhill about a foot. I leveled the path below it and used that height as the grade for the box so lots of shoveling, but it did put some good composted soil in the 14′ bed I built yesterday, less will have to be purchased. The new box was set in place and filled with soil some from the paths beside it. The remaining 4 boxes up there are on either end of the asparagus bed and beside the one I built. They are going to become 4 x 8 foot boxes and will require a lot of digging in, but there is so much good soil there and where the compost pile was until the chickens spread it last fall, that there should be less needed for purchase. By the time I finished the box building and soil shoveling, it was time to fix lunch. Then I drove the tractor back up to the barn and hauled a 16′ double joist, two 8′ double joists, two 12′ 2 x 10s, and miscellaneous boards to use as ends for the boxes. The 16′ joist was cut in half, others trimmed to matching size or squaring off ends, and another long box was built, replacing a 4 x 8′ and a 4 x 4′ rotting cedar boxes.

I ran out of steam before I could build the next 4 x 8′ one on the upper end of the garden. It will require a lot of digging to level it and bring it down even with the smaller one I built this morning. The other 4 x 8′ one can’t be built until the garlic is harvested, but the wood is cut and will be stacked beside where it will be placed. Everything I did today is replacements. There is still a 4 x 4 that needs to be replaced, but I didn’t haul enough wood down to tackle it.

Several more bags of mulch were applied between the new boxes from yesterday and this morning. The garden is looking good.

Tomorrow will be 2 weeks since I got my second vaccine, so we are going to go dishwasher shopping. Maybe afterward, I will tackle the 4 x 8′ box that can be built now and Friday morning, before the rain showers begin, I will plant peas and onion in some of the newly finished beds.

I have lots of rotting cedar boards. The more sound ones will be used to build a compost bin in the corner of the garden near the hen coop. The rest will go in the burn barrel and burned when the spring burn ban is lifted.

For now, I’m going to just sit with me feet up for a while and redo my garden plan now it isn’t based on the old box sizes.

The boxes that needed to be built have been. A second long hard day complete. The 14 x 4′ box that had to be dug in to the slope was dug in. Lots of soil shoveled from one end to get it low enough and cardboard put down at that part and the frame screwed to the corner posts. I used a level and though it isn’t totally level, it is far better than some of the other boxes, then the soil had to be shoveled back on the cardboard to work the other end. Eventually, I would like to move more of the wood down from the barn and reinforce or rebuild the cedar boxes that are rotting away. The row above the long box will need to be terraced in as well. Those boxes all sit at a bit of an angle. Since we don’t get our last frost until Mother’s Day, I will attempt to get that row repaired at least before they are to be planted. A single 14′ long 4′ wide bed would encompass the 3 four foot square boxes and they can be terraced in to make the center aisle mostly level.

We purchased more soil and more mulch today and stopped at the pet supply store to pick up cardboard, but they had already discarded theirs today. We stopped at the convenience center and was told they can no longer allow cardboard to be taken because of COVID. There was enough to do the bed and part of the wide center aisle. The soil that was shifted and the bagged soil didn’t even begin to fill the new long box. Some mulch was put down where the paths were covered. The box that was built yesterday got the extra tier on the ends, it is the deepest bed and will be great for potatoes this year, but needs another 8 to 10 cubic feet of soil. We will continue to bring home a few bags at a time so the beds are ready to plant when the weather allows. I hope that between last year’s efforts and this spring’s efforts, that the garden will be easier to care for in future years with no more heavy moving of wood, soil, and only enough mulch to keep a good layer to hold down the weeds. The one addition I want to make is an A trellis to use to train the tomatoes. Son 1 did that last year and was pleased with how it worked. One that fits an 8 foot box can be moved to different large beds as crops are rotated would be ideal.

This morning, as I was trying to loosen the tight sore muscles from yesterday and getting my toast and coffee, 9 deer wandered slowly across the back yard and upper field. You can see that the trees are still bare.

Some of the seed planted on the weekend have sprouted. I have a row of Mesclun mix and one of Kale. One of the herb are beginning to show too.

The tomato seed arrived today and they were put in the new hydroponic seed starter. Soon there will be flats moved in and out of the house to give them sun and light wind to strengthen them into healthy sprouts to be transplanted in the garden at the right time.

I still need to finish laying mulch and try to rebuild the two rows of boxes near the top of the garden. Since more cardboard wasn’t available, I will try to use the remnants of a roll of weed mat or layers of newsprint to finish the wide aisle, but the heavy work is done for now so my body can recover some before more wood is moved. I have decided not to move the compost pile and will leave it on the wider side instead of building another box that isn’t even on the garden plan. The area is not really large enough for another planting box and the narrow corner where I was going to move it won’t be easily accessible when the comfrey grows up this summer. Perhaps a few more medicinal herb can go in that space.

Two days in the dirt and my hands are so rough that spinning finer fiber is almost impossible. I will have to slather on lots of cocoa butter for a few days. That that is even wearing gloves most of the time.