make it happen!
Okay, the ground was not dried out from the previous rain, but if I didn’t plant the last of the tomatoes today, they would probably have dried up in their tiny, little containers (is that redundant? –rhetorical question. yes.) So I planted nine San Marzanos and three Mexican Midgets, plus the last three of the broccoli. I also weeded the onions and rigged up a deer/rabbit barricade for the newly planted tomatoes. I arrived at the garden about 9 A.M. and left about 1:30 P.M.
Not just anyone can be a farmer. Nope. We found two more tubs, for a total of five, to haul wood chips. It took about an hour to go to the city landscape waste, load five buckets up, drive back to Piper, position newspapers, and spread the chips. Although it’s only about 80 degrees, the humidity seems to be right about 100%. We were going to make another trip (we meaning my farm hand who works only for food), but it was starting not to be fun. The landscape waste facility is only open Thurs through Sunday, so we will have to wait four more days to continue the grand scheme.
Residents of Macomb can pick up free wood chips at the city’s landscape waste location. So we loaded up the laundry tubs and headed out just ahead of a storm. Came back home to have some dinner. Just as I was getting ready to sear the ribeyes, the electricity went out. Lit the gas burners with a match and heated up some mashed potatoes the old-fashioned way: on the stove. After a nice candlelight dinner, decided to head to the garden since there was nothing to do at the house. Three laundry tubs covered almost 20′ of garden walkway.
That’s what the neighbors are thinking. Dwight installed the north fence–or at least all the panels we had painted and transported to the property. Â The goal is to hide the various clutter necessary to raise food.
Dad and I have now finished painting enough panels to complete one end of the fence.
No drama, just saga. We have been working on the fence as we have time. We’ve decided to make the north and south sides of the garden fence solid. Dwight has some salvaged corrugated metal that we have primed and painted. Dad and Dwight did all the priming; Dad and I have been painting during the heat of the day. The panels are approximately 6′ tall.
Thanks to some reinforcements, we were able to get some stuff planted today. Although all the gardeners have offered to help, it seems to rain for three days and then we have to wait for three more to dry out. Since they are all busy during the day, Mom and Dad and Dwight met me at Piper. We planted 11 tomatoes, then protected them with cages and deer netting. Â While Dad and I worked on the tomatoes, Dwight and Mom weeded the cabbage/broccoli bed. Then we interplanted probably 50-60 pepper plants in that bed. We covered that with row cover; hopefully everything will survive to adulthood!!! Finally, Dwight dug two more post holes and we now have the first hints of the gate! Oh, almost forgot: we spaded up the east bed again . . . so many weeds.
tomato cages
looking toward piper
This is the hand that held my hamburger.
the pepper, cabbage, and broccoli bed
looking west at those straight bean rows!
At first glance the headline might seem to be grammatically incorrect, but I stand by it. Okay. Next we have some fencing material. Dwight is such the shopper because he got such the deal; however, we shan’t reveal just how much of a deal. We will just leave it that those boards there cost around a dollar/foot.
Imagine my surprise when we pulled in to show Colin the progress on the garden, and we found Dwight in the middle of digging his tenth hole of the day!! Lots of progress was made–and some decisions, too, regarding the gate and garden shed placement.
No news to report. Here are pics of our work from a couple of nights ago when we finished too late to have any light for pictures.
