Sunday, June 10, 2018

gardening

I had a very late night Friday. Not by choice - I was really tired. But Moxie and Della decided not to come in from their after-dinner mouse hunt at the usual time of ~10 PM, so I had to wait up, occasionally ringing the "door bell," until they came in around 1 AM. So I had a late start Saturday morning, and - not the cats' fault - a bonus severe headache. When I got outside around 9 AM, it was already hot and muggy. After morning chores I had no energy left for other tasks.

It was a waste of a beautiful early morning and I’m writing about it in order to get this idea firmly in my mind:

I need to get up and out early.
No matter how little sleep I’ve had
or what kind of shape I’m in.

So this morning I was out, creaking but determined, as the sun was coming over the horizon. After chores I transplanted seedlings while the sun was low. Then as the morning heated up, I returned to a project I’ve begun to tackle in small increments:


This pile of rocks and roots and soil was created when the builder was grading the portico area. My plan is to remove the stones and use all the soil in the new Very Raised Bed.

First, I tried removing the stones with the power of my mind.

Then I tried to come up with a method that would actually work, but without causing a lot of added aches and pains.

As you see in the picture below, I set up a screen over the garden cart - remember the garden cart? - so I can stand upright for most of the sifting process. Not leaning is the best thing I can do for myself, in any activity, period. I have only so many "leans" in me on any given day, and nearly all of them go to the goats and Piper.


This task also has some variety in position and motion, as only one or two shovelfuls can be sifted at once. So there's turning, digging, lifting a shovelful of dirt and rocks, and then more sifting. Gripping is another tricky skill for me these days, so doing just that little bit of shoveling then going back to sifting is good.


Big rocks are rolled to one side, and will later become part of the garden. Fist-size rocks, smaller rocks, and roots, are filed separately. What's left is a fluffy pile of soil.

Della decided to check my work by hopping into the cart (beneath the screen), walking through the soil, and hopping out the other end of the cart.


The hardest part is actually getting the cart down to the Upper West Side. The loaded cart is heavy. The driveway is steep. A very heavy cart could get away from me, leading to scattered soil and bad language. So I fill the cart only part way, and even so I tack, back and forth, on the steepest section of the driveway.

Here’s the very first load shoveled into the new raised bed:


This is a couple of loads - and days - later:


It's quite exciting to run a hand through it without encountering anything hard or sharp.


I intend to keep at this until the entire pile has been sifted. I'm really looking forward to planting this garden bed, but the more soil I can add atop the thick layer of bedding and manure from the goat barns, the better. Meanwhile, in the existing gardens, I've been planting pole beans and transplanting all the seedlings that were started in the greenhouse. A little bit every day. And lots of watering. And enjoying the perennials appearing one by one:



Northern hemisphere readers: how does your garden grow?

~~~~~

13 comments:

  1. Wow! You got a lot done.
    Out of all the marigold seeds saved and sowed, one seedling. I must date the envelope.

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    1. Oh no! I had the same experience with one-year-old pole bean seed from a packet, while my own saved seed germinated at nearly 100%. Such a surprise.

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  2. I tend to get headaches if my sleep schedule is disrupted. Sounds like you've got a plan for tackling that pile. Just take it nice and slow. We certainly wouldn't want any bad language or otherwise. :) Have a good week.

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    1. Thanks, Tammy, and thanks for getting me thinking about my knitting with your recent blog post :)

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  3. Wow. That's a lot of hard work. But it looks beautiful.

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    1. It's the kind of task I always took pleasure in doing - physical labor, visible result, much satisfaction - but now I have to remember to turn off the voice in my head that compares my abilities "now" to my abilities "then."

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  4. I hear you about getting up early. Lately I've been hanging in the bed until almost 8am, way too late. So I am trying to go to bed earlier--too often I end up staying up because of one thing or another. And that dirt--it looks beautiful, but I worry about you--that's a lot of hard physical work.

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    1. I've gotten better at pacing myself, through necessity. And despite inherent stubbornness. Actually, trimming goats' hooves is one of the most "dangerous" things I do, because even doing one goat requires the leaning, plus the gripping, plus bracing all my leg and back muscles throughout. Now that I've actually put it into words, I've got to try to come up with a better way...

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  5. I feel exactly the same thing about getting up early. It's so hard though when one hasn't had enough sleep!

    Your new raised bed and the dirt is wonderful!!! My garden is growing really well, although it's nowhere near as beautiful as yours!

    I understand about the limited number of "leans" too. Whew, that looks like hard work!

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    1. I'm so glad to hear your garden is doing well! I remember the first time I naively planted flowers in Colorado...that was when I found out about the critical importance of watering! ;)

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  6. Funny how mind power never seems to accomplish the job! No surprise there I guess. Laughed at the test run from Della - after all, she felt she needed to make sure it was quite soft enough for planting.

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    1. Her footprints were about two inches deep! :)

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  7. I'm impressed with both your rocks and your soil. I know rocks are a nuisance where there's a lot of them, but they are so useful for things and we have so few here. Instead we have clay. Which is why I'm impressed with that beautifully sifted soil!

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