Month: March 2021

It’s done, it’s done

Yesterday and today were glorious dry, blue sky, spring like days and I was going to rest and recover. The storms attacking the southern states are headed our way and tomorrow it is going to rain and rain and rain. I have been trying since December to get VDOT to come clear our culvert and re dig the ditch above it as the crusher run from the last maintenance has the ditch filled almost to the road grade. I have filed work requests online, talked to them on the telephone, filed another work request and still no action. Yesterday, DH and I went up with the tractor, a garden fork, and a shovel and the two senior citizens managed to get a 5 foot area cleared above the upper end of the culvert, however the pipe itself is about half full of debris and the ditch above is still full of gravel and sand. We don’t want the rain to create gullies in our driveway. I filed a follow up report with VDOT to let them know that we managed to barely open it but it still needs work, but I doubt it will come to any good. When I filed one last July, they came and did the work but left the work order open. When I file again, they just close the new work order, leaving the July one open. When I called, I tried to get her to close the July one and leave the December one open, but she closed December and wrote comments. So that day of rest and recover was shot.

Today we went for a walk on the rail grade, then went and got the remaining bags of mulch and since I didn’t rest yesterday, I went ahead and put down more weed fabric and mulched the back side that I had run out of mulch doing a few days ago. There are 3 bags left to use after the garlic is harvested and that last box is closed in. I dug up most of the comfrey that was on the side of the garden and moved some of it up to the upper corner where last year’s compost had been and some of it to the walled garden I built last summer. That will allow me to mulch up to the top of the box that is unfinished for now.

To make sure the new starts are well protected from possible hail tomorrow and three nights of freezing temperatures, I reinforced the mini greenhouse I had built. After the storms tomorrow and before Friday night’s 27 degrees, I will add an insulation layer of some sort over it as well.

The chicks are now 3 1/2 weeks and 4 1/2 weeks old. Three of them still look like cute little chicks, but most of them are gawky adolescents with long legs and little feathers sticking out all over the place, and they try to fly out of the brooder every time I move the baby gate that is on the top.

It doesn’t take long for them to cease being cute little fuzzy creatures. After the cold weekend, they will be moved to the big feed tank brought into the garage to give them more space. They empty the feeder and the water daily now. In about a week, the big hens will be moved to the other coop and locked in for about a week to get them used to that location and the smaller coop will be thoroughly cleaned and sanitized so it can get dry before the little ones move out there in mid April, where they will be locked in for a week to get used to their new home. Some dustbath holes need to be filled, the run possibly shortened as there are some spots where the smaller birds could get under the fence.

Knowing that the run will be a muddy mess tomorrow, after I locked up the hens, I tossed down a new layer of old hay so I don’t fall on my keister when I go over to let them out in the morning.

Somehow in my efforts to feed all the critters, lay mulch, and clean me up afterwards, I managed to cut my left index finger (I’m left handed) and my right second finger so now both hands are sore. All the garden effort and the skin injuries have certainly cut into my spinning and knitting time so far this month. I have managed to spin enough of the Dorset Horn to knit two squares for my Breed Blanket Project, and just enough to count for the other challenge has been spun. Maybe with the rainy days ahead and with nothing else that can be done in the garden until planting time, I can finally rest and recover and maybe get some more spinning and knitting done.

This is the first square for March, now there are two.

I just finished reading “The Salt Path” by Raynor Winn, a memoir of a year in her life with her husband after double devastating events. It certainly caused me to stop and be thankful for what I have and my health, even if I come in sore, bruised, and battered from my farm and garden work. It is well written and well worth the time to read.

I would like to read her second book, but it isn’t available at our library.

I want to say I’m done, but I’m not.

We went out and bought a dozen more bags of mulch. I wrestled some stubborn grass clumps that had come up over and through the weed fabric, laid more where needed, put down the last of the cardboard in the narrow paths, and started spreading the mulch. I had hardly begun when a light cold drizzle began. It wasn’t supposed to start raining until tonight. I worked on through until I had the gate side, the narrow paths, the south end, and the blueberry bed mulched and realized that there were only two more bags, not enough to do the chicken run side and the rain was getting more persistent, so I quit.

These are before and after pictures of the entire garden before this week’s work.

This was last year after I tried to reinforce the thin cedar boxes, dug out the mint bed where the white bag is laying and put down hay as mulch. Seeing the tomatoes planted in the upper right box and the comfrey up beside it, it was later in the season.

Here it is after the week’s work, taken from the opposite end. The plastic over the young greens is about where the mint bed was dug out for perspective. The large box to the left of the barrels is where there is no box in the upper photo’s top right. I tried to grow corn there last year unsuccessfully. The boxes are sturdier, the mulch is shredded wood mulch over cardboard or weed fabric. The two remaining bags of mulch awaiting some sunshine or at least no rain to finish the last bit on the right side. You can see two of the old boxes that didn’t crumble when I pulled them up, leaning against the fence. They along with 4 more you can’t see in the upper right corner are going to be taken apart and the boards used to create a two bin compost pile up in that corner and that area will be mulched only with hay. It has been a lot of work, but I am hopeful that it will reduce work in the long run and will produce better harvest in some areas that did not grow well.

Digging and Building are Done…

. . . well nearly. We only had light sprinkles yesterday and no rain in forecast today or tomorrow in spite of the earlier prediction. Hey we live in Virginia, if you don’t like the weather, stand there for 30 minutes and it will change. After the usual Saturday morning breakfast run and trip to the Farmer’s Market, where I purchased with my already harvested greens, 8 healthy Mini Head Lettuce plants. Yesterday afternoon, we bought two more Blueberry bushes, so after we arrived home, the garden clothes were pulled out, the bushes planted at the ends of the two rows of the other 6, the lettuce starts planted in one of the new boxes. and the tools brought out to finish the heavy work that was remaining. The box away from the garlic was dug in and built, filled nicely with the soil from the two boxes it replaced and some of the compost beside it. I didn’t want to leave the box that incorporates part of the garlic bed and below it undone. The cedar boxes are not truly 4 feet, so I dug outside of it and built 3/4 of the box around it. When the garlic is harvested, the 4th side will be added and the soil from that box added to the new larger, deeper one.

This is the box I cheated on. The new 8 foot sides end about halfway up the sides of the cedar box. I may add one more board on the near end and fill that box deeper. The other one built today is on the opposite side of the 4 x 4 box and the asparagus bed that still has fence on three sides of it.

From up the hill, you can see all the new boxes and all the old cedar boards that need to be removed. Two of the old cedar beds are stacked in the left corner, that is the compost area. Peas, onions, garlic, asparagus, and lettuce starts are in. The flat of spinach, kale, and mesclun mix are growing nicely and after the early week freezing rain that is expected, they will go in the garden as well. I will protect the new head lettuce plants with a translucent plastic box for early week’s freezing rain.

We bought a roll of weed mat as cardboard is not available and tomorrow, if I can bend after today’s efforts, I will finish putting it down and getting mulch on it. All that will be left to do is plant when the time is right, keep the weeds down in the beds themselves, all relatively easy tasks compared to what has been done. As I dug earthworms, they were added to the new beds that are bagged soil on cardboard to get them started in those beds. It has been a strenuous week that has seriously cut into spinning and knitting time, but the garden looks good, has boxes I can sit on the edges of, and is ready for the seeds and plants that will fill our freezer and larder shelves with goodness to enjoy. Since all the tomato plants that have been started are determinate plants, I may just stake them this year and build the A frame trellis next year. If I ever get the energy to move more wood, I may box the asparagus bed and build a new long box around the blueberries, though I think weed mat and mulch is all that is necessary there.

The peach tree, maple trees, and other fruit trees are beginning to bud out. I hope we don’t have a fruit killing freeze.