Outdoors - Outside Work

   We had a great weekend. The temperature was fairly nice and the wind was not blowing for the first time in months. My wife and I had time and decent weather to get some work done outside. We started with garden preparation.

   This year, we decided to do raised bed gardening. When doing research about raised gardens, we found what seems like several advantages. They are easier to work as they can be reached without bending over. They are closer to the house, which may discourage deer. The biggest advantage I can see is it limits my space. With the regular garden at the bottom of the hill, there is no limit to how much I could plant. If we were running out of space, I could just till up a bit more ground. With just my wife and I eating the food we are producing; we have no need for a five-acre garden. What seems like a good idea in early spring soon becomes a lot of work and usually gets ahead of us. The temptations are great when we are going to the greenhouse as the gardening season gets closer. Everything looks good and we think, “it would not be that much more work.” With this attitude, we end up with six each of five different types of tomatoes, eight varieties of peppers, corn, beans, cabbage, beets, carrots, and the list goes on and on. With space limited, we will be planning carefully.

   The garden boxes were built, painted, and placed just off the porch. An old hickory tree had blown down not far from the house. I cut it up into manageable pieces and placed them in the bottom of the beds. I then covered them with soil we had dredged out of the pond. This is a combination of clay and sand. On top of that, I added about of foot of good dirt from a several years-old compost pile. My wife topped this all off with store bought potting mix and peat moss. We now just must wait for temperatures to stay high enough to keep from freezing new little sprouts.

   Our next project was burning the grass and weeds off the north side of the dam. A light breeze was blowing from south to north, so we started a fire on the north edge and let it burn slowly up the face. We are going to plant wildflowers in this area. My wife purchased several bags of wildflower seed. Some are perennials and others are annuals. Hopefully, the combination will grow faster than the grasses we burned back. The objective is to have the perennials take over the area in a few years to provide wildlife cover and pollen for the bees that will be located nearby.

   Our final project of the day was to check on the beavers and their projects. They are doing a good job of cutting down excess willow trees that line the banks of the lake in places. My only objection to them is occasionally, they decide the lake is losing too much water and go plug up the drainage tube with branches, mud, and grass. The lake is drained by a thirty-six-inch cement pipe running through the dam for about a hundred feet. When the beavers are feeling water insecure, they plug the first six feet or so of the tube. If we would happen to get a rain when the tube is plugged, in less than a day, the lake would be backed up for close to a mile. The tube was partially plugged so I cleaned it out with a rake. We then ventured around to the other side to check on the progress of their home building. They have built their humble abode more to Taj Mahal standard. It is easy to see where all the willows they cut have been used.

   By the end of the day, we were running low on energy but feeling good about our accomplishments. It is nice to get some outside work done.