I have almost always had a vegetable garden. In fact, back in the 80's, I gardened about 3000 sq. feet of vegies and gladiolas (3 and 4 year old Ellie was my flower salesgirl at the local florists). The size changed over the years, but always found space for at least a couple tomato plants. Before moving to Moss Hollow, we had a real nice plot in Virginia. It had been a garden before we had it and we had access to lots of well rotted horse manure. We had all the vegies we could handle plus plenty for our landlord, Walter Scott, and the girls at Kelli Temple's barn.
Now, Moss Hollow is pretty much just trees and rocks and, of course, moss. But vegies need sun.
Behind the shop, in front of the septic tank, is a pretty sunny spot. That's where we're going to put the little garden. The raised beds we did in Virginia worked great, so that is the plan here, too. So here we go: A small raised bed, 4X8ish, 2X8 sides. I got a load of compost from a guy in Carterville: Good Earth Compost, to help the soil. We do have rabbits (go figure, in the woods?), so we needed to fence it. We had some nice decorative fence sections that we used in Georgia (and moved a couple of thousand miles); kind of fancy, but we had it. A basic, purely functional vegie garden, right?
I'm sure it will look different with a bunch of green stuff growing in there. Luckily, it's not visible from the road. You would have to go around the back of our building to see the "family plot".
Monday, April 7, 2014
More Stone Wall
You may recall that I built a stone retaining wall and steps on the East side of the shop last Fall. The plan was to continue it on toward the back and on around the back until it met the grade towards the South West corner, but finances interrupted that process. I was buying the stone from a quarry a ways East of here and had spend a couple of hundred dollars doing the first part. The critical part was finished, the rest could wait.
Over the winter, when weather and mud allowed, I continued clearing the road to our new house site and the site itself. The site is just 50 yards or so down the hill to the next rock shelf. In the picture above, the photographer is standing at the head of the driveway going down. The building site is behind me and to my left. It shows well in this photo, below, taken from the top of the stone steps, looking back down the other way.
Rather than simply cutting trees off at the ground, I needed to get the whole stump out. This is a rather slow process with my little tractor. I have made quite a lot of progress and now have some nice open areas near the new house site.
The process of clearing, digging stumps, and leveling ground has exposed lots of rocks. As I came across rocks, I hauled them back up hill where I needed to build more retaining wall.
After a couple days of nice spring weather, I got that wall 99% finished. Just need a few more to get around the driveway to grade.
Over the winter, when weather and mud allowed, I continued clearing the road to our new house site and the site itself. The site is just 50 yards or so down the hill to the next rock shelf. In the picture above, the photographer is standing at the head of the driveway going down. The building site is behind me and to my left. It shows well in this photo, below, taken from the top of the stone steps, looking back down the other way.
Rather than simply cutting trees off at the ground, I needed to get the whole stump out. This is a rather slow process with my little tractor. I have made quite a lot of progress and now have some nice open areas near the new house site.
The process of clearing, digging stumps, and leveling ground has exposed lots of rocks. As I came across rocks, I hauled them back up hill where I needed to build more retaining wall.
After a couple days of nice spring weather, I got that wall 99% finished. Just need a few more to get around the driveway to grade.
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