Last weeks projects

The garden

I finished putting in the garden this last weekend, except for black beans and potatoes. I hope to get them in this week. I tilled the garden with my new/old rototiller that I got last year. A great story goes with all the goodies that came with the rototiller - another time maybe)

I tore down the old fence and gateway, which were just little black birch poles and totally rotten.

I cut up a couple 8" maples and birches that fell during the ice storm into 6' lengths and then split them with maul and wedges for fence posts. I cut down a couple young beech and made my garden gate/arbor. This year the arbor is going to have annual flowers, but next year I'm going to put in grapes. The chickens were still getting under the fence, so I cut up an 8' section of a 15" pine that fell, and using maul and wedges again, I split out planks and put them along the downhill side at ground level, where the chickens were causing the problems.

I tried out a new idea for planting this year...centered around a teepee structure in the middle. I planted pole beans and cucumbers to grow up it and a bed inside of lettuce, which after 5 days, has already come up. The beds around the teepee have tomatoes, basil; kale, jalapeno's and lettuce; carrots; onions; parsley, lettuce (again) and Swiss chard. I have a zucchini and yellow squash plant at each front corner. The rear of the garden is traditional rows, first sunflowers, then a row of hills of Big pumpkins, butternut squash and pie pumpkins; then potatoes; then 2 rows of black beans for soup and refritos. I'm hoping for something cool looking as well as a summer food source.

The trellis

I also built a trellis in our Buddha garden at the patio. The clematis and hydrangea vines weren't really climbing too well on the ugly cinder block chimney. The trellis kind of hides the chimney and now the vines are climbing. The picture is dated two weeks ago, the clematis is already almost to the top and there are tons of flower buds.  It's going to be pretty.