Well, I am finally home. I headed down to the Red Wing garden with my 8 year old daughter Nell on Saturday morning. That garden is just under half and acre, and last year we enclosed it with a 500’+ deer net fence which a couple of weeks ago I had restrung with a high-tensile strength galvanized steel wire. Nell and I worked out way around it, using zip-ties to re-attach it the full length of the enclosure. Then we used the old broken wire, strung from eye hooks post-to-post to create another fence at 36″ off the ground and attached the fencing to that level as well. No weight on that wire now. The grape vines were now easy to find so I got the rest of those pruned. I finished the day (about 5 hours) tilling with a rented rear-tine tiller and got about half of the area inside the enclosure nicely done into beds.
I collapsed and was asleep by 830 pm, but awake at 4 am. Not a bad night’s sleep to be honest, but I was hurting. A few painkillers, a pot of coffee, and some home-made sourdough toast and I was back out with the first light, but it was not exactly as easy to till as it has been on Saturday. It had rained over night. The dry grasses and old cornstalks which had broken apart so easily and tilled under the day before, now twisted into muddy ropes in the tines of the tiller, causing it to ride up over the dirt and needing to be cleaned out after every pass. (broke most of my fingernails down into the quick working that crap out) 8 excruciating hours later, with the temps going up to 80 degrees, I simply collapsed. Finding myself light-headed with problems walking I went inside and just passed out for 2 hours.
When I got up Nell and I went back to the garden and built an 80′ long steel post trellis system, with posts every 20 feet and a metal top and bottom wire. We then created a twine netting between each of the posts, with the top and bottom metal wires providing stability that won’t stretch. When we finally completed it, it was planted with an 80 foot row on each side of blauchakker peas ( a dry soup pea ) and then it was time for another break. Storm clouds were rolling in and thunder was threatening, but after watching 15 minutes of rain spattering here and there, I decided to go out and plant in it. I had brought along 5# of onion sets, all storage types (not the sweet ones) with the hope that having a good amount of plants gophers detest might discourage gophers from infesting the garden as they had last year. The 5# of onion sets planted 260′ of rows. That was it for the planting. I took a shower and we went out to eat before making the 90 mile drive home.
The only area I did not manage to till was about 40X60 in the southwestern corner. The original plan had been to plant that with popcorn. Now I guess I will use a shovel to make just squash hills that can overrun whatever weeds grow there and the popcorn will go somewhere else. If I get out there next weekend I will plant one of my cold-tolerant corns, or work on the orchard part of the garden. I need to contact the Ness family and find out if they have tilled that garden up. If they have (that one is planned at 125X125, with a separate planting of an acre of corn) I need to get out there with Patti, stakes, twine and a tape measure and get it all gridded out for planting. That is the garden where the greatest bulk of the root crops is going. Some evening this week I should also bring grubby clothes to work I can change into, stop at the Minnetonka garden, and get that tilled under as well.
Always more than enough to do, always trying to get done as much as I can. After such a hot day, the next 10 are supposed to be with highs in the 50s, and lows at night in the 30s, but for a while out there in the sun today, it felt like summer.
I don’t know about any plans, but I built some elevated beds by tanikg a piece of 5/8 treated plywood and building a stand for it out of 4 4 s. The stand has to be pretty stout, it will be holding a lot of weight. Build the frame first then set it on the legs, It has six legs. I have a full frame around the outside with two cross pieces evenly spaced from end to end. I cut sides and ends out of another piece of plywood 16 tall and then attached them to the floor by running a 2 2 around the edge , set back far enough so that the outside of the sides and ends are even with the edge of the floor. I ran another wall across four feet from each end and stiffened that with 2 4 s. I used screws throughout that are rated for use in treated lumber.I have three of the beds that are three years old and still going great. Don’t forget to drill holes in the floor for drainage.