The Garden Part 3 -- 4/19/09

Dwight D. Eisenhower once famously said, “The plan is nothing – planning is everything.” I’ve taken that to heart in my “2009 Garden Experience”, and I think it’s helped me out immensely. In the past month or so, I’ve put together plans for my garden: from how to build the beds, to how much loam I’ll need, to what to plant (and where). But my plans are constantly changing and evolving. I keep trying to think of any contingency that I haven’t thought of, plan for what I know, and get prepared for what I don’t. With that in mind, I poured over my notes before ever getting started, and figured out where I was liable to mess up. As I said, I think it’s helped me, and the main way I can say that with conviction is that during my projects, I have only had to make 1 unscheduled trip to Home Depot or Lowes in the middle of my work. (That trip is outlined below.) So to Ike I say: Well said, sir. Well said.

I knew this weekend was going to be a big one. Even though more than half of my vegetables aren’t going in the ground for at least a month, I wanted to get all my beds built and loaded up with soil this weekend. There were a couple of reasons for this. First, I was having a load of loam delivered and I didn’t want it just sitting next to the driveway for a month while I used it. And second, I was planning on surrounding the entire garden with a fence, and I wanted it all set up before that. With all that needed to be done this weekend, I had to get prepared before it even started. First, I went out during the week and purchased the remaining lumber I needed for the beds. I couldn’t find the 4x6s at Home Depot (even though their website says they have them), but that wasn’t a big deal, as I just got 4x4s and hammered some 2x4s on top. On Thursday night I took an hour or so to cut all my lumber into the lengths I would need. (And all my planning really paid off there. I had graph papers of my plans, and went over exactly what I needed several times until I was positive I knew exactly what I needed.)

I love the smell of fresh cut wood in the morning.

Then I called and had my 5 yards of loam delivered on Friday. I had calculated that I needed 4 yards, but 5 was their minimum, and I figured too much is better than too little. Everything was in place for Saturday morning.

That's a big pile of loam.

Saturday came, and I knew it was going to be a busy one. I wanted to get the beds built by 11:30 am so that I could get washed up before the Arsenal/Chelsea FA Cup Semi-final match at Noon. Then we had Sox tickets for Sat. night (see Sage’s blog below), and we were going to want to leave by 3:00 pm or so. And since the weather was calling for showers on Sunday, I wanted as much done as possible on Saturday. I’m not sure whether it was the fact that my mind knew that I had a lot to get done on Saturday, or the 1/2 bottle of wine I drank on Friday night, but I was up around 6:00 am, and couldn’t fall back asleep. So I got up, made some coffee, and before I knew it, Sage was up as well. (It wasn’t me being noisy that got her up – if you don’t believe me, ask her – I think it might have been the other half of that bottle of wine…) Since we both were up and she wanted to buy a rug for the living room and I needed some more nails and a hoe, we decided to hit Lowes early. Let me tell you: If you ever need to go to Lowes, 6:30 in the morning is the time to go. Emptier than a noon game at Scott Stadium. So we got the rug and supplies, and I was back at work in the garden by 7:15 am. With my newly purchased headphones and iPod in my pocket (a story for my next shuffle article), I got to work with the 1st bed.

With my planning in full mode, I had come up with a 11-step method of building my beds, which actually turned out to be pretty well thought out. (The steps below are for my 4' x 8' beds that require a 6" buildup on the low end.)

Step 1: Level out the area for the 8' 4x6 on the "low" end of the bed, and try to level out the sides by digging into the hill.

Step 2: In the garage (my only flat surface), attach 2- 2' long sections of 4x6 to an 8' long section of 4x6 with 6" high 2x2s in each corner. (Note: That was my original plan, but the 2x2s didn't really keep the 4x6s in place, so I adjusted that step by nailing a 1/2" piece of plywood, about 2" x 2", to the outside of the corner, and that helped a lot.)

Step 3: Place this "U" section in the area I had dug out, and make sure it's level on all sides. Note: I didn't secure this section to the ground. I thought about doing it, but decided in the long run that they weren't going to go anywhere, especially once I got all the loam in them.

After step 3: the 4x6s are in place, to help build up the low end of the bed.

Step 4: Nail a 7'8" 2x2 on top of the 8' length of the 4x6. This 2x2 was on the "inside" part; that is, towards the bed. This is put in place so that I have something to hammer the 2x8 that's going on top of the 4x6 in to.

Step 5: Nail 2- 2' 2x2s on top of the 2' lengths of the 4x6, for the same reason as in step 4.

Step 6: Position 2- 4' pieces of 2x8 on the outside "ends" of the 4x6 U section. Make sure these are level by digging out the "high" end, if needed. (Since they rest on top of the short 4x6 sections that are already level, they should only require some minimal digging out to ensure they're okay.) This will mark off where the "high" end 2x8 will go.

Working on Step 6. It would probably be more level if the hoe wasn't in the way.

Step 7: Now that I know where the "high" 2x8 will be located, dig out a level section for this piece to go.

Step 8: Build 2nd "U" section by connecting the 2- 4' 2x8 pieces with an 8' 2x8 section. This should be done on a level area (I used the garage again). Note: I was going to attach each corner section of 2x8s with a 7 1/2" piece of 2x2 to help keep the bed square. However, I decided that just nailing the sections together and ensuring they were square worked just fine.

Step 9: Position 2nd "U" section of 2x8s onto the bed, laying the 4' sections on top of the 4x6 sections. Ensure all 2x8s are level.

Step 9 completed. Note the sun just barely getting above the house at this point.

Step 10: Nail the 4' 2x8 pieces into the 2x2 pieces that were nailed in to the 4x6 sections.

Step 11: Nail an 8' 2x8 into the long 2x2 section that's attached to the 8' section of 4x6. Finish it off by nailing this last 2x8 piece into the 4' ends of the 2x8s.

Step 11 completed -- and so is bed #1.

And that's all that's to it. Bed #1 took me about an hour to complete, mostly due to the pain of trying to get it all level in every direction. A lot of digging around, taking dirt away from area A, putting dirt in area B, etc. But it worked perfectly, and I was quite happy it turned out so well.

I had 3 more to go, and each was a little different. The next one I put together was a 6' x 8' bed, with 4x6s on the low end. That took about 45 minutes to complete.

Bed #2 complete on the left.

The 3rd bed was also a 6' x 8', but only needed a 4x4 on the low end.

Almost done with bed #3.

Yes, I am the dorkiest gardener in the world.

And the last one was a 4' x 8' bed with a 4x4 on the low end.

Finishing up the last one.

Success!

All told it took me about 3 1/2 hours to get all 4 of these done. Not too bad, but I'm no Norm the Carpenter either. So as it was getting close to 11:00 am, I wanted to try to get some loam into at least the 2 low beds, where my first plantings are going to be, just in case the weather turned crappy on Sunday. So I grabbed my shovel and wheelbarrow and went to get cracking...until I noticed the wheelbarrow's tire was flatter than a plasma TV. This was not only inconvenient, but a bit puzzling, as I had just used the wheelbarrow a weekend or 2 ago. So I went about pumping it up.

Sage just has to take a picture of EVERYTHING...

As I tried getting air into it, nothing was happening. Sage looked at the tire and noticed it said, "tube-less". So I guess pumping it up wasn't going to do anything. Getting very frustrated, I took my 1st (and as it turned out, only) unscheduled trip to Home Depot. I found a tire that seemed to be the right size, and even found some fencing for the garden that I couldn't find this morning at Lowes. I was back home in 15 minutes (it's great that Home Depot is right around the corner), and set about getting the new tire on. Of course it wasn't the exact same size, but with some Gorilla Tape and and a couple screws, I got it on good enough. I was able to get about 5 wheelbarrow loads to the beds before 11:45 and my alarm going off to tell me it's quitting time.

Chelsea 2, Arsenal 1. Stupid Drogba.

After a day where I was up at 6, worked in the garden for almost 5 hours, then spent 6 hours at Fenway, plus long walks to/from our car, and getting home at 11:15 pm, it's no wonder that on Sunday I slept in until 8 am. Even when I did get up, my body was aching, but there was no time to waste. Thankfully the weather idiots were wrong again, as it dawned sunny and beautiful. After a bagel and some coffee, I was back at the loam, filling up the beds with sandy/composty sweetness.

Dumping it in.

It took me about 2 hours to get all 4 beds filled in. It didn't help that the stupid tire I bought for the wheelbarrow was too small, so I couldn't pick up the handles that far at all when I was pushing it.

All 4 beds, filled to the brim.

Not surprisingly I had plenty of leftover loam, but I'm sure the beds will settle down a bit as the rain gets to them, and by the time I plant my tomatoes and peppers, I'll probably need to add some more to it. I also have some blackberry bushes coming (any day now, I hope), and I went to work digging up a small plot on the side of the house for them, and loaded that area up with fresh soil.

And then, finally, it was time to sow! Today I did 3 plantings: Half a row of radishes; a full row of sugar snap peas; and half a row of lettuce. (I'm doing the lettuce and radishes in 2 plantings to spread them out a bit.)

Planting radish seeds. Sage took about 10 more pictures of me planting seeds, but none were as exciting as this one.

Okay, this one is pretty thrilling as well.

And that was that. I decided to put off putting up the fence around the plot until after these seedlings start to come up. I know some of you are probably wondering why we even need a fence, considering our backyard actually has a chain link around it, and it's not like there are deer running around Natick to eat my garden anyway. Here is my answer: In the past few years I've had 2 other gardens. Both times I had either started without a fence, or tried growing a few outside the fenced part. Both times my plants were eaten within a week. As soon as I put a fence up, the snatch-and-grab jobs were gone. I always assumed it was some neighborhood rabbits that were doing the eating, and the fence easily kept them out.

However, a twist to the fence story might in the works. During my tasks today, one of our new neighbors Pam stopped by to welcome us to the neighborhood and bestow a nice house plant for us. (I was oblivious to her stopping by, as I had my headphones on and my iPod cranking some killer funk at the time.) We had heard from our other neighbor Sandy that Pam was a gardener at a cemetery, so Sage mentioned to her that I was out back putting in a vegetable garden. She told Sage that last year she tried having, but that "the squirrels ate everything I planted". This sounded very strange to me, as I've never heard of squirrels eating up a vegetbable garden. We've had plenty around houses where I've had gardens, and since a flimsly 3-foot high fence would be no problem for them to climb over, I'd have thought they would have eaten all of my past vegetable plants if they could have, or wanted to. (But maybe Natick squirrels are different. Already Sage has seen a squirrel getting into our compost and grabbing a piece of tomato -- and in Wayland she used to dump tomatoes outside all the time and the squirrels never grabbed them.) So if the squirrels here really do take a liking to my garden, then I'm in trouble, as my fence will never work. If that happens, I won't be happy -- especially after all this work getting it up and running.

But for now, it's a gorgeous spring afternoon, the charcoal grill is fired up, I'm drinking an iced tea, the garden beds are all in place, and the thought of fresh summer vegetables far outweigh any other worries I might have.