Archive for the ‘raised beds’ Tag
“The First Flower on the Deck for 2014”
I just opened my eyes, rolled over and checked the clock. It was 6:30am and I was awake, it was morning, and the only thing on my body that wasn’t sore or stiff was my eye balls as I looked around the bedroom.
Without a doubt I love Spring time but OMG the work involved. The last week has been nuts and the weather has been just warm enough to make me crazy. As always I tend to overdo at this time of the year in my lame attempt to make the warm weather get her just a little sooner. I’ve been "garden" involved almost one hundred percent these last few weeks. I’m trying to get as much of the preparation done as I can before I take my trip to Texas over Memorial Day. I’ll be returning from there just after the holiday and I need the garden ready for planting when I get back.
My main project for the last week was the rebuilding and repairing of the raised beds that I initially built five years ago out of non-pressure treated lumber. They were slowly rotting away and were filled with bugs and other unwelcome guests. It was easy enough to just tear the wood out of the ground but getting the required replacement lumber to the house without paying Lowe’s huge delivery fee was a bit more difficult. I have no immediate access to a pickup truck so I had to improvise. I drive a small and cute PT Cruiser that is my all time favorite vehicle. I was forced to turn her into a workhorse for two days as I made numerous trips from Lowe’s to my house with 12 foot long pressure treated boards sticking out the passenger side window at least four feet. It was the only way I could get them in the car and close the rear tailgate door. It made for a very interesting drive home. I accomplished it without killing any pedestrians who happened to be standing along the edge of the road and I also dodged hundreds of mailboxes that I came within inches of as I sped past.
Everything was delivered to the house with minimal damage to the car, to me, or any innocent bystanders. It’s not something I ever want to try again. Lugging all those heavy boards around has accounted for most of my sore muscles and general overall feeling of "death warmed over".
The pictures will show the new and improved beds and the other work that was done. The gardens have been cultivated, composted, and the fabric put in place covering the soil.
This week I’ll be planting the cold weather crops such as lettuce, kale, and spinach. I visited a nearby nursery yesterday and made a few preliminary purchases to place temporarily into the cold frames. While chatting with the owner I was able to pick up some valuable information on upcoming weather patterns and all of the problems with specific plants lost or damaged due to the rough winter.
I’m now in the process of preparing the hoses and sprinklers for installation. They should be up and operational in a day or two and then I can relax for a week or so before my trip.
My better-half is suffering from a raging Spring Fever that has taken complete control of her life. We have a wrap-around deck that partially circles the second floor of our house. This deck becomes our second home during the Spring, Summer, and Fall. As you can see she has moved many and assorted pots to the deck to begin planting her container garden. She’ll have pots full of a grand assortment of flowers and certain selected vegetables making it like a jungle out there in just a few weeks time.
Once I return from Texas I’ll be back to my good old Maine gardening ways doing all of the things I enjoy most. Fortunately for us both all of the really hard work will have been completed by then allowing us to enjoy the garden and deck time well into September. Then the canning, herb drying, and wine bottling can commence once again.
I’m making today an official day of rest. For you religious folk out there today is my Sunday. No gardening, no home repairs, and no shopping. It’s a do my workout, post my blog and relax kind of day.
I’ve been working steadily for the last week and one by one the projects and problems have been solved and accomplished. The damage caused by my better-half’s derrière to the garden’s raised bed has been repaired. It wasn’t a tough job just a little time consuming. It’s amazing to me just how in a few years time good old Mother Nature is can totally destroy a piece of untreated lumber.
This was a raised bed I built a few years ago and in two years time I was forced to replace three sides of that rectangle. It was initially built with untreated lumber I had laying around. Three sides to the bed were totally rotted but the fourth side I didn’t replace at that time. I used pressure treated lumber for the replacements, made the repair and moved on. It was that remaining untreated board that I just finished replacing. I tried to take it out in one piece but it crumbled in my hands as I lifted it out. Hopefully this repair will last a while longer and I won’t be replacing anything for quite some time.
I no sooner finished that piece of work when I started preparing for the next project on my Spring To-do List. As I mentioned in my last post the set of steps on the rear of my house had been badly damaged by the falling ice and snow from the roof. A quick trip back to Lowe’s to purchase another load of pressure treated lumber and I was ready to go. In years past when this has happened I just replaced the broken railing with exactly what had been destroyed. Not this time.
I spent some time designing a much heavier and stronger railing for those steps that I hope will stand up to next years ice fall. I’ve tried everything to eliminate the ice problem including attempts to rake the roof with a snow rack with a twenty foot handle. The back of the house is just too tall for that. So the railing I just finished should be able to take the hit from the ice without exploding into a zillion pieces. I won’t know until next Winter just how good or bad my design really is. I can’t explain to you just how much ice we have on that roof and how much it really weighs. I can tell you that when the ice finally let’s loose the entire house shakes on it’s foundation. The first time I experienced it I almost had a heart attack, I thought we were having an earthquake.I put the finishing touches to it yesterday and I’m pleased with the results. That was the last major repair needed and now I can focus on the garden.
One of my smaller garden projects was to build another large cold frame. I built a small one and have been using it for a few years and it’s saved me a lot of money in plant replacements. With this screwed up Maine weather another large cold frame makes a lot of sense, I’m also building one for the better-half’s daughter who has created her own garden over the last two years that is slowly turning into something special.
During our house remodel a few years ago I rescued a few windows and put them into storage. They make the perfect top for cold frames. I finished mine this week and have hers almost completed. Once they’re both installed I can finish the cultivating of the garden and get the fabric placed into the frames. I do the fabric installation early in the Spring which helps to warm the soil in the frames and eliminated the weed problem. Once that’s complete I’ll remove the plants from the cold frames and replant them one final time. Then it’s sit back and watch them grow until late summer when the canning can begin.
It seems the springtime work is never done and unfortunately it never is. It’s been requested that I frequently update the progress of this garden through the summer months and into harvest time. I’ll be doing just that and will try to keep it interesting with as many photos as possible.
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