Retraction from a previous post

Just was re-reading a post from last April 16th and realized what an ass I am! I knew back in high school just what the Electoral College was for, and why it was included in our voting mechanism, but had forgotten it in the intervening myriad years!

They are the ONLY reason that we are not now in the total grip of the Clinton political mob!! I can't believe there are more idiots out there than non-idiots, but that is the truth! Shrillary did win the popular vote from all the big city "din do nuffin's", and every single person who is a non producer but has their hand out waiting for it too e filled by Uncle Sammy for sitting on their asses at home all day every day!

 

Those framers of the constitution were some really smart, critical thinking,  forward thinking, seer's of the highest order, to see just what was in the future as regards the population of the big cities and population centers and how they could come to dominate and dictate to the rest of we deplorables out here in flyover country. Yeah Yeah I know, flyover country is to the middle west, but we out here live to the east of the dividing line! And you still have to fly over here to get to us! OR take a boat

Im done doing my Obama imitation, bowing and scraping, kowtowing and kissing ass!

TIFN!

First High Tunnel plantings of this year

Well on a nice rainy day I spent an hour or so in the High Tunnel, hereafter called the HT, putting in the ground, the first seeds of the year. Planted Bibb, Caesar, Black seeded Simpson, Mesclun lettuces. They each have one half of four of the mini beds in there.

Have a lot of plants already started in the House GreenHouse, hereafter called the HGH. Lots of Patterson onions, Broccoli, Cauliflower, and cabbage. They will all be put in the HT as soon as I think we are done with any hard frosts of any length. These are only the the first round of each that we will be eating thru the summer and early fall. In about 4 -6 weeks I'll start another batch right in the mini beds for storage and canning etc.

I also have 75 strawberry plants on the way to. Was going to put them in the ground but have decided to put them in the HT too. Only they will now be in 6"x 6"x10' trays made out of ledger board. They will be filled with compost, planted , and lifted up to the purlin/bow junctions in the HT to just above head high. Then, the berries  will just cascade over the edges and hang there waiting to be inhaled by workers below, ME!

Got all four of the Raised Beds next to the HT all broad forked and fertilized. Now they will be covered with the various pieces of woven black plastic  with the holes all cut in them. The hole spacing is all set from when I grew things in them inside the HT last year.  These pieces of plastic are to be anchored with ground cloth pins to hold them in place. That should take care one any weeds that should dare to try growing in  the vicinity!!

Have the plot by the well all smoothed out and raked flat, waiting for me to get the BP laid down for what is to be the Squash patch this year. Rotation of crops you may remember from Gardens 101, is the epitome of a good producing garden! In this same plot I will be planting 24 Mary Washington
 Asparagus plants along the west edge of the same. And another 24 each year for two more years. By then there should be a good amount for munching. Hopefully I'll still be around to partake of the  yummies!

Putting this out there again if anyone is interested in coming on over to look at the setup in and around the grounds please feel free. This Mini-Beds on Plastic is the brainchild of one Herrick Kimball who I have been conversing with for the last 3-4 years on the 'puter. He has more  ideas than Edison the light bulb man, on how to make gardening a lot easier and more fun.  If you have a few minutes google him at these two addresses, all lowercase; uplandgardner.blogspot.com and the other one, minibedsonplastic.blogspot.com. As you read thru his articles, click on all the links that are imbedded in there. Lots of good stuff, and he has a home operated online business where he sells items that he has invented. Try googling, Planetwhizbang.com and see what comes up! That is his business address and is just filled with great things.

Guess TIFN so adios, ciao, etc.

Picture update for the previous post

Going to try again with the pictures. Well there they are. If anyone here on BI is interested in taking a look at the whole setup, come on over and we can talk about it. This entails a whole new concept in gardening. You can do this with the whole garden or just parts of it. What this all boils down to is that if you have a decent spot you will never have to till the ground again. In fact tilling destroys all the previous years work of the roots making holes and tunnels in the subsoil that allows air and water to move thru the soil. There is a whole lot to this idea and I'll see if I can put up a couple of links that explain it all. Standby!Okay, here is the first one. Uplandgardener@blogspot.com and the next one is , Planetwhizbang@blogspot.com. They are both run by a man named Herrick Kimball who lives up in the Fingerlakes region of NY State. He is full of ideas for the garden and I have implemented many of them in mine. This Mini-beds-on-plastic is his idea after years of reading others ideas and coelescing them all into this new method and it all makes sense. Google the links and do some reading. If you are an avid gardener, you will come away impressed!

This is one mini bed with the plastic cut on three sides

When first moved into High Tunnel

This one goes to the right of the below left one.

All 56 mini beds on the plastic

First plants are WALKING Onions I had in there before covering. Had to dig them up and then replant.

Getting the High Tunnel ready for planting

Well I dismantled the whole setup I had in there last year as it just did not work. Oh the plants grew very well and we got a lot of food out of it, but it was labor intensive and a constant battle with the weeds!
SO this year, about early January, after getting every thing out I gave it a good deep tilling. Back and forth both ways four different times. Got it mostly level with a construction rake. Then about a week ago we dragged in a piece of plastic called a "bunker cover" This is what farmers use to cover the silage, animal feed, that they have stored in outside, three sided bunkers. It is black on one side and white on the other. Seeing as I want the heat to be transmitted to the ground, we put the black side up. It was cut before we brought it in so that there was about two feet extra on all sides.

Before bringing it in I had dug a six inch deep by six inch wide trench all the way around the inside perimeter of the HT. The  plastic was pulled snug and anchored all around with those things called soil staples.

Then I brought in 56, 30" x 30" frames made out of 2x4 lumber. They were placed in six precise rows, front to back and labeled A thru F.  Spacing is two feet between each mini-bed each way, and two feet in from the outside walls. There is one area just inside the man door to the left that is nine foot square where I stow all the tools and stuff needed to do the work in there.

After lining them all up, I drove three, one foot long pieces of 3/4" re-rod in three corners of each mini-bed.This was just to keep them from moving around due to accidental kicks or being run into by a wheel barrow. Then I proceeded to cut the plastic, 3/4" inside the 2 x 4"s on three of the sides. I left it attached to one side so that in the event  it wasn't being used, I could recover it without having to chase around after a piece of plastic. Also keeps the wind from blowing them away!

Now I am just waiting for the ground in there to heat up to about 60 degrees and I can start dropping in some of the plants I already have growing in the greenhouse on the front of my house.

In each one of these mini-beds there will be intensive planting. There may be as many as three or four different types of plants growing in any one depending on their growth habit and symbiotic relationship with their close neighbors! Lots of plants DO NOT like every other one in the patch so you have to keep them at arms length so to speak.

My weeding between rows and beds is now non-exitistant, and the ones growing inside the bed will be minimal once the good guys get growing and shading them out!!

So now, I am going to try to upload a few pics here so you can see what I'm babbling about:

Well been trying for an hour and cannot figure it out so---- No Pics till I get a lot smarter!

TIFN

New Steps

Well everybody bitched and moaned about "the possibility" that folks would fall and break bones and heads and things trying to get down to the beach by the corner of the Surf Hotel.

Finally someone took the bull by the horns and got a great new set built that looks as though you could drive a bull dozer down them!

So they are all done and then-----, they block them off so no one can actually use the damned steps!! What is up with that? Or do they have to be blessed or sanctified somehow before actual use? Or---, could it be that they are reserved for only summer visitors? Beats the hell out of me!!!

TIFN