Back to work

I started working on another raised bed for next year's vegetable garden today. This one will be constructed primarily from landscape timbers i picked up at the local lumber yard. I bouhgt 20 of these timbers this morning and then spent the rest of the day preparing the area for their installation.

It was a little tough going as I had to pull many goldenrod plants out and since they spread by their roots, that meant a slow steady pull to get the root out. It's a lot like tying to pull an night crawler out of the ground. Jerk too hard and the plant (worm) rips in two above the ground. A slow steady pull will get the root and, if you're lucky, the runners as well. There were root sections of the multiflora rose that had to come up too and they are woody SOBs.

Once I had a sizable area cleared (I want this bed to be 8' by 16') I started to work on the soil with my shovel and Johnson bar. (The Johnson bar is the long, black 16 pound iron bar with a chisel on one end and a tamping pad on the other.) I discovered an old section of fence buried a few inches beneath the soil and rocks and had a devil of a time getting most of it up. I say "most" because I'm sure some is still in there yet. It was rusted pretty good and every time I would try to pull a piece out it would snap.

The soil is that fill mix of shale and clay and, while pulling the weeds up loosened some of it, much of stuff is packed hard as concrete.

Did I mention it was sunny and hot out there? The temperature soared up to 87 degrees today. Thankfully the humidity was down around 60 percent. My shirt was soaked and water flowed off the bill of my cap. I would work for an hour or and hour and a half and then take a Gatorade break. I even took a short siesta break between noon and two in the afternoon. Even so, I still shed 4 pounds from this morning to when I quit to shower and have dinner. It was nearly all water weight, however, and will mostly come back in a day or two.

Tomorrow, I get to lay out the first course of timbers and start building the wall. There will be some cutting involved as the sides will be stepped into the hillside.

I'll try to remember to take pictures as I work.