Wow, now I’ve met the rototiller, and I’m pretty tired from it. It’s a good thing I weigh as much as I do or there would’ve been no chance of me running it as it would’ve run away with me. As it was, I just did a few rows of the garden to try it out and let the husband do the rest. Between the nasty vibration while it did its tilling and the way it wanted to jump forward and run away when it hit something denser, I had to generally throw my weight constantly backwards to ensure I could keep control of it. My fingers are strangely stiff and sore after that as well as my forearms. After all the raking and digging, I was getting tired really fast while using the rototiller, and who knew the horseradish would’ve spread so much through the plot?
We got the tilling done in about 2.5 hours and the rest of the time was spent getting the yard more ship-shape than it’s been in awhile. Even the dog was helping! She saw me rolling logs to a new location, and when I came within the radius of her tie-out leash, she grabbed the log with teeth and both front paws and started pushing and pulling it too! wish I’d had my camera with me…and I did, but I forgot it was in my pocket! curses! It would’ve been an awesome picture. Of course there are some more logs so maybe we can get her to do it again. Very smart dog. when I was doing the initial raking to clear the area to be tilled, she tried to help with that too by batting at all the grass and debris on the rake when I was dumping it into a pile. It was all good until she decided the pile was a comfortable place to lie down and watch the proceedings. Later on, Davin was trying his hand at digging in the freshly tilled plot, so of course the dog decided she needed to dig a big hole of her own. Everyone else was digging something or other, so why not her too!
After the tilling and raking etc was done, I laid out the lumber to make the frames for the veggie beds. I had gotten just enough lumber in the car to do the job which was good. I discovered I had to remap the garden a bit as the dimensions weren’t quite the same shape as I had thought. So, remapped it is, and we have a few more square feet to plant from it. Here’s the new remapping (click on it for a larger size in a new window):
By the time I was forced to quit working it was getting dark, and I was getting rained on. I’d reached the point of diminished returns for the evening. So off home we went with plans to return on wednesday to finish laying in the frames.
Next up at the big plot: finish the frames, and acquire the compost and peat moss and start mixing it in – I’ve been told there is free compost available which I will go retrieve; setup vertical frames and cages.
Next scrounging run: find more materials to set up the vertical growing frames and cages with.
I’ve also finished 3 cold frames for the front yard so I can start to harden off seedlings over the next 2 weeks. So far it seems things are more or less on-track.
