Frontier woman!

We made use of the nice weather for a few yesterday and cleared storm debris off the garden beds!

Here, the Bride can be seen working/looking like something from an Elle pictorial on the third coming of "pretty grunge."

Garden Clean-up and Bed Build 2010, Week 1, Part 2

Look! New beds!

We got five built, but it happened that Wood Guy Matt called and told me that he had about thirty just-arrived 2" x 8" 's and, while they are paid for, we didn't have time to cut them and build them. That means next week at this time, you can be bored into anguish by further garden updates! YES!

So, we got five newies built and loaded with their lasagna-bed fixin's:

Here they are in context to the existing seven beds that you have previously know and loved/loathed:

Garden Clean-up and Bed Build 2010, Week 1, Part 1

Yes! Turn off the PC and take a nap, because I have pics from our gardening weekend! Stay and be bored!

Here is the main bin, early a.m. on Saturday:

Rear view, neighbors have kindly brought tons o' leaves for the cause:

And just like in Rear Window where James Stewart realizes the flowers have lowered themselves, here is a time lapse of later in the day, where scattered skids have been used to make the whole bin longer, and the levels of leaves, compost and manure have sunk:

Where you bin? Get it??

Where you bin?

Never mind.

Here is the mega-extendo compost bin that was assembled Saturday. Eleanor Perenyi (for it is she) says that a compost pile can always take more. We will see! Gerna have limitless tons of crap by the weekend (some literal crap - going to Josie's boss's horsebarn for equine effluvia!), what with the local elementary kids doing a neighborhood leaf pickup and our voluteering to be a leaf drop site.

Farm class!

Went to a class Saturday on late season growing - turns out that both late and early season are relatively simple. SO, in thinking I would have a respite for a smidge at the end of the conventional growing season I was in serious error. No rest for the wicked, or, as we can say today, freed from the constricting propriety of old, No Naps for Assholes.

(cover Pex tubing [supported on sticks of rebar] with clear plastic sheeting, tamp down the edges and heartier plants will grow into December. Then you can plant again at the end of February using similar methods. And no napping!)

On-site water barrel activation!

GardenWorld update!

Okay, most everything is staked up (well, it became staked up after these pics, blooper spotterz!), the Gardentone is applied for the first time...

Swampy

Mercifully, today the weather is crisp and pleasant. But we've definitely had premature swampiness. I had some friends from out of state and north-in-state (Toledo) who stayed the summer once down where I went to college and they were all "What the hell is with the thunderstorms EVERY AFTERNOON?" And I, shamefaced, had no answer.

Still, it's good for the plants! Look, M___ and L_____ even got a SHOVEL to help. It was probably just their dad's anyway, but I like the idea of the two of them ganging up on the parents for their own and begging for a gardening implement until they relented!
















AND two water barrels were completed and placed on site! They won't catch rain all that much, but one of our community gardeners has a back spigot and hose that are about 200 ft. away, so we bought an extra couple lengths of garden hose et voila! We can fill these pups, put the lids (not shown, but extant) on and only have to fill them once a week!

















This was all on Saturday, with monsoon clouds a-gatherin' the whole g.d. time. Long about four pm, the shit hit the fan and things went all Walker Evans-y in the neighborhood: