2/25/2011
You know, it's been almost a year since our last update of this little corner of the website and so maybe we should discuss a few things as I get a little time to toss a few items into the hopper here.
Since Clif & I have been going on and on about the pending global famine, due to the floods in Australian, South Africa, new Zealand, and the next round of "Ma Nature Beats Humans with Weather Stick" expected in the Midwest this spring, I thought you'd like to see what's been going on over in that department.
All started with Ol' NumbNutz reading through the Harbor Freight ads online when I should really have been working back in November. They were having a sale on these nifty looking 8' X 10' greenhouses so I ordered one up.
We tripped over it well into January, until finally Panama Bates, the bro-in-law who's got an apartment in one of the buildings on the property said "Where do you want this darn thing?" I pointed up to the garden and suggested, since the thing has the potential to be a bigger than full-sized box kite without some added weight, that he put the thing on some unbelievably heavy (or I'm really that outta shape...naw...heavy is a better description) treated 4 X 4 posts...
That said, Panama got to work...
As events unfolded, Panama developed a sort of distaste for the patience of the Asians (Chinese) who designed and built this thing. "Why?" you're wondering.
Well, it's not apparent that there are 500-odd (se he claims) different minutely differentiated parts. Since Panama wasn't raised on Heathkit Electronics, like I was, the notion to spending more than a few hours on a kit...and having it stretch into several days hadn't really sunk in, I figure.
nevertheless, tenacious as all ex SF/Ranger types are, he continued bolting, crewing, and mumbling (in Mandarin at times, I swear it) and moved along to this stage.
As soon as the sides were completed (or nearly so, as you can make out for yourself) his mood improved. Most likely because of the declining number of parts left in the various sorted piles down in the shop.
I was going to suggest that he move the whole kit & caboodle up to the garden, but given that it was off and on rain, I suppose that was a bad idea...so he must have walked 10-miles back and forth to the shop getting this, that, exchanging the wrong part for the right one, and so forth. Keeps him in prime physical condition, and admittedly, I'm more the lazy sort myself. If there's a way to save labor or prevent perspiration, I'll take two, thank you.
We take a little pause about here and slide to mid February as the winds and rain and snow see if they can break the new greenhouse - they didn't. Not even the 3" of snow. I felt pretty good about prospects for a lush garden at the end of this trail...
Now to pass on one of my best solutions ever to the problem of getting a garden ready for planting: Getting after it with a big-ass propane burner and a 40-pound gas tank on a hand cart. Yessir, those WW II flame-throwers got nothing on this!
That's Bates doing the work while I did fire-watch with the garden hose - we take turns at such activities.
Then I got after the whole garden (again, when I should have been working) with the bigger of our two tillers. And after building some simple 2X4 tables topped with plain 1X 6 boards, the finished setting (as of today) looks like this:
And then all that remained was for you-know-who (moi) to set up shop in there...
That little thingy on the wall is the digital wireless thermometer which lets me look now and then from the office to make sure the greenhouse isn't getting too hot.
Most plant play a fine version of dead if they get over 110...and over 125 for sure.
Match up the greenhouse with that underground plumbing I laid in a couple of years back, and that old kitchen sink which is integral to my "in the garden wash station" and you can easily see how come later on this spring, we'll be spending evenings up here eating fresh as can be foods.
I'll try to do more frequent updates around here, but you get the idea of how this is going to work out...
Click here for Volume 11 of Hippies 2.0
George & Elaine