Monday, March 14, 2011

Hurray! Garden Time!

This Just Out!
 
20 feet of Radishes Planted out Today!
 
Talk about the gardening bug. I have it bad! I hope to put out some Onions too in the next few days when I get up enough energy to dig up another raised bed. 
 
About 11:00 am this morning my "WeatherBug" program said that it was only 36 degrees out but it was Calm and the sun was shining. I thought, "Well, Burpees planting guide says that you can plant out radishes and spinach and such in our area. I Know that radishes can withstand a light frost and will survive under a blanket of snow even. Soooo...
 
I decided to do a little garden work. Mended the break in my unbrakeable Garden Hose...that I bought just last spring at a pretty hefty price. So much for quality. Must have been Quality China!
 
Dug up my #2  - 4 x 8 raised bed. A real feat for a man who has had almost no physical exercise all winter but sitting on a chair in front of my computer an messaging my behind all winter! And way over-weight! So, I dug up the plot with my garden shovel, added some Gypsum (to feed the clay in the soil), spread a couple coffee cans of matured cow manure and a small wheelbarrow level full of last years composted leaves and kitchen scraps. Then I borrowed my daughters neat little Fiskers brand hand twist tiller and quickly mixed all these ingredients in the bed.
 
By this time, I needed a distraction. I usually need to have at least 3 projects going at a time so I scientifically measured myself the exact height of a Garden Stool I needed to rest my butt on when I got tired for a few minutes. I had an old, Snap Lidded 5 gallon bucket sitting out in my garden. Sat on it. Didn't feel right. My knees were at a very awkward angle. The bucket was too low. So I found a couple of chunks of 2 x 6 lumber cutoffs and stacked them on the bucket. Ahhhh. Just right - almost. Found a chunk of 1 x 8 and put that on top. Ummm-Hmmm! Perfect. Went back in the house and found my tape measure.
17 and 1/2 inches exactly. Now I can build me a simple "'Cow Stool" kind of thing to sit on in my garden. Hope I can still keep my balance as I did when I milked those Gurnsey's as a 10 year old kid! Surely I haven't forgotten how?
I probably will pull one of those "Laugh-In" Old Man on a Trike things a couple times to start but it should be like riding a bike. Once you learn how... But I haven't ridden one of those Either in  the last 50 years! Oh well.
 
After finishing with the measuring and thinking about a plan in my head, I was ready to git off the bucket and  plant my radishes.
 
The sun was getting low in the West and I wanted to finish this job Today. So I marked off some rows using about half of the plot I had dug up and prepared and put the seeds in their furrows. I used two packages. The first package of radish seeds had about 30 seeds in it! I barely got started and got about 8 feet and they were all gone! And I had carefully planted them about 1 inch apart rather than just scatter them in and pick out the extra little plants to one inch apart as the packet recommended!
 
That pack would have planted about 2 feet using Their recommendations. (We know what That company was up to!)  These seeds were expensive! Dollar General had 3 packages for $1 mix or match! I could barely afford them.
 
Those $3.79 packages you find at Lowes and Walmart are meant for people who live on the Old MOney end of town! (You know where I mean). And I'm not even into the New MOney yet! My income is so low a snake couldn't crawl under it. I just can't afford fancy seeds that were probably repackaged for Dollar General anyway. Gourmet' Seeds? Who would have guessed it?
 
However, the second package of seeds was much better. About 50 seeds or so. I finished up with a respectable row of radishes and I was done except for watering them in. My daughter was talking Rain Barrels when we had a short conversation later about the price of water in this little town.  ( I hope she can afford them when she finds out how much the fixtures cost that you need). I wander if the city would let me put up a windmill for my garden. Probably not. To many Hubcaps hustling to impress the towns people being Big Wheels. Typical small town where 2 or 3 people run the whole town - and are the shadow government behind the City Council. But that's another story... wait till they get wind of the Windcharger in the alley! Maybe.
 
So my day is finished and I'm really ready to hit the sack. I wander what I have in mind for tomorrow? Cheers!
 
Bob
GrandBob

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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