It was a long (and at the same time, ridiculously short) weekend here at Kali-Fu farms. We were hoping to have at least one day of relaxing this weekend, but as seems to be happening every weekend these days, we got caught up in multiple projects. No rest for the wicked, I suppose. They were all little things this time, but as always, the little things added up.
The Weekend Project Board
Okay, we didn't really plan to get all that done this weekend... the chicken pen we decided to move to a later weekend. The rest, however, was the plan. Did I mention we thought it was going to be a relaxing weekend?
We started with a rain barrel. We decided to install one to help watering the garden... plants prefer warm water (or so we're told) and the water out of the hose is ice cold. With the stairs and distance to any faucet that has warm water (and the cost of watering with heated water) we opted to try rain collection. Once again, I've done the math, and it will actually take a LONG time for the cost of the water saved to offset the cost of the rain barrel and various materials, but I suppose conservation is a good thing regardless of the cost.
More fun than a barrel of rain. Well, maybe exactly that much fun.
I was surprised at how quickly the barrel filled up - it's 75 gallons, and it was full after the first rainstorm we had (about four hours of fairly steady rain). We haven't tried the pressure with a hose yet, but so far, it's great for filling up watering cans.
Which brought us to Project 2 for the weekend: the second garden box. We're using a technique called "Square Foot Gardening"... I won't go into details here, but the main premise is that you don't need 30 foot beds to get good production. Instead, you use containers four feet by four feet. We've got one in progress already (with various root vegetables and lettuces) but we need to get another ready for April planting. That was the goal for this weekend.
The frame under construction and the initial placement
The boxes themselves aren't too bad to build, but installation is a pain. We want them to be at least quasi-permanent (we may replace them with brick later) so we're installing them on concrete deck footers. To make everything square and level, we've sunk them into the earth and graveled the holes. Lots of digging and heavy lifting...
We are Garden Bots. All your base are belong to us!
The end result... a pair of garden boxes. The one on the left is for shorter plants and fully completed and wrapped in bird netting. The one on the right has dual lattice action for the beans and peas we'll be planting in April. We'll be building (and digging - yuck) yet a third box sometime between now and May when we'll plant more vegetable-y goodies.
That would have made our weekend full enough, but we noticed that the orchard we planted back in autumn had become a favorite feeding ground for the deer in the area. Argh!! So, no choice but to take care of that problem before we had nothing but bare branches and stumps. We opted for posts and bird netting instead of caging with hardware cloth (bad experience in the "orchard" from previous homeowner).
Zip ties and netting... always a recipe for fun?
If you've never worked with bird netting, it's a pain, especially in the wind. In the wrong light, it's also pretty much invisible. And those metal stakes aren't too heavy by themselves, but carrying several of them for long distances added up to some more pain. It was worth it in the end, though:
An orchard safe (I hope!) from deer.
After all of that, we probably should have quit while we were ahead... but I decided if I didn't tackle the grass, by the time I had another chance, I might not be able to see over it to steer. Unfortunately, in addition to being tall, the grass was also wet, and I wasn't paying attention to the buildup around the top of the mower deck (bad me!). Friction, clogging, whatever the cause, the result was a broken mower deck belt.
That left us with a half-mowed yard and a half-functioning lawn mower. The local Tractor Supply didn't carry the right belt, so I had to turn to the inter-webs and now we're at the mercy of shipping times. Oh well... at least it's an excuse not to mow. :-)
So, all in all, an exhausting, but productive weekend. I have a feeling Spring is going to be full of those... but we're still having fun, despite the blood (literal) and sweat (in buckets). No tears yet, so I'm calling this weekend a win.
Until next time...
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