Fairfield goes to work

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the newest member of our family, Fairfield.

Perhaps I shouldn’t say newest. When Matt heard that we were getting a rototiller from my cousins, he said, “Knowing your family, it’s going to be ancient.” I scoffed. Then I had to eat my words when we picked up the tiller from my cousins.

Turns out, they got the tiller from one of my aunt’s friends. This friend was my grade 4 teacher, Mrs. Fairfield.

Matt usually takes responsibility for naming, but he’s still hung up on the tiller’s advanced age, so his only suggestion was Grandpa Joe. I think Fairfield is more appropriate given the tiller’s history and its usual work site. Although I’m not sure Mrs. Fairfield will be flattered. (Auntie Anne, perhaps don’t mention this to her).

If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that I was a bit anxious about tilling the weedy soil. Would any tiller make it through? Let alone our senior model with its small tines?

We pulled off the tarp that has covered a large section of the garden for more than a month. It looked pretty weed free.

We had covered another section with a piece of carpet that I’d unearthed. I was surprised to discover that the tarp did a better job of killing the weeds than the carpet did. The carpet just made them flat and pale.

We haven’t given up on the carpet, though. We’ve moved it and the tarp over to the other half of the garden. Our supervisor needed an appropriate monitoring post, obviously.

The rest of the family was hard at work. Matt and Wiley mowed the weeds that hadn’t been under cover.

Then Matt and Fairfield went to work.

And they kicked butt.

The rototiller totally worked. Even when they got into the grassy bits, Fairfield powered through.

There was still some manual labour required. Fairfield broke up the soil and the weeds pretty well. But Matt and I did have to go through with the hand cultivator and the pitchfork and pull out the roots. It was much easier though, thanks to Fairfield.

It’s looking like a garden. We actually have space to plant a few things this year (we’re going to leave the other half covered with the tarp and the carpet for the rest of the season, probably).

As of the end of the weekend, we had the dozen tomato plants and four red pepper plants that you’ve seen before, plus a row of green onions, zucchini, yellow bush beans, beets, acorn squash, butternut squash, pie pumpkins and rutabagas (Matt threw that suggestion out as a joke, so of course when I saw the package of rutabaga seeds I had to buy it).

My most important Home Goal for 2015–the vegetable garden–is actually happening.

Thanks to my cousins for passing along their tiller (and thanks to Mrs. Fairfield for passing it along in the first place).

What are you growing in your garden? Any advice for growing rutabaga? How about tips for running a rototiller? How old’s your rototiller? Feel free to introduce it to Fairfield in the comments.

Planted!

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

It may not look like much–especially considering that there’s still carpet lying over the weeds–but the first plants are in the garden.

We’re still waiting on our hand-me-down tiller to arrive, but that didn’t stop Matt from coming home with a dozen tomato plants and 4 red pepper plants. So that meant I got out the pitchfork and went to work to dig out the weeds in a corner of the garden by hand.

It was just a small corner, but it was home to two heaping wheelbarrows-full of weeds. The roots didn’t go deep, but they snaked along just under the surface making a thick dense mat. I really hope the rototiller is able to break up the ground. It didn’t take me as long as I thought to pull out the weeds by hand, but doing the whole garden by hand will not be fun.

So you’re still seeing a few weeds and grasses and roots strewn through the dirt. But you’re also seeing tomatoes and peppers.

The garden has begun!

How is your garden growing?

Getting ready for the great gardening weekend

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

This is it, folks. The Victoria Day long weekend. The first long weekend of “summer.” The kick off to gardening season in Canada.

And I have ambitious plans.

First on the list is mowing our ~~jungle~~ grass. Every spring, we’re late getting our grass cut. The first year, we’d just moved to the farm and didn’t have a tractor. The second year, the tractor wouldn’t start, thanks to a broken fuel pump. Last year, it took us a couple of weeks to get the mower deck attached to the tractor (the level ground that is required to get all of the pins to line up perfectly does not exist at the farm).

This year we’re delayed because we need to sharpen the blades. I’ve done it before, but always with my Dad and always on much smaller mowers. For the first time taking the blades off our deck, we want some help, so we’re waiting until my Dad can come to supervise.

Next on the list is giving my forsythia haircut. (Dad, can you bring your hedge trimmer when you come over, please?)

After that, I need to weed two more flower gardens–the biggest ones, of course.

And then there’s the vegetable garden.

I know this was supposed to be my one and only outdoor project for this year. Obviously I’m multi-tasking with grass and forsythia and flower beds. Just trust that those things are necessary too, okay?

I’m anxious to get started on the vegetable garden, but I’m not going to be able to do as much as I had hoped over the next three days… and not just because of the other things on my list.

The biggest vegetable garden task this weekend is going to be the fence. We have a nice weathered wood fence. It looks great, but it’s not that helpful for protecting the garden from the local wildlife. I need to add some chainlink, and I need to build a gate. ‘Cause if I leave the door wide open, it doesn’t matter how much chainlink I have on the rest of the fence.

I had hoped that that I’d be able to break up the sod too this weekend, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

The tarps that have been spread over the garden for the past few weeks have not succeeded in killing the weeds. They’ve just turned them a bit pale.

Our farmer tilled our fields last weekend. I ran after the tractor one evening and asked him if it came in a smaller version–small enough to fit inside the ring. He shook his head and said, “I’d have to do that one by hand.”

As the tilling continued, I looked enviously at the tractor every time it drove past the ring.

I had reserved a heavy-duty rototiller from a local equipment rental shop (because neither my Dad nor Matt’s want to sacrifice their rototillers to fulfill my garden ambitions–spoilsports), but it was surprisingly expensive to rent. Matt’s and my cheapskate sides came out, and I canceled the reservation.

I had heard a rumour that one of my cousins had a rototiller he wasn’t using. Turns out he doesn’t need it anymore, and we can have it… in a couple of weeks. So we’re waiting on our new-used (and better yet free) tiller before we tackle the sod.

Even without the rototiller, I think we have enough to keep us busy… for all three days of this weekend.

Wish us luck, would you? Hopefully I’ll survive the weekend and be back next week with an update for you.

In the meantime, let’s keep each other motivated. What’s on your weekend to-do list? Are you gardening? Or hoping to garden?

Woman vs. tarp

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Baxter here with a garden update for y’all.

At least that’s what Julia says we’re making. It doesn’t look like any garden I’ve seen before.

Two weekends ago, Julia lit the “garden” on fire. I used to love that spot of the field. The long grass was super, super sniffy. But now it’s gone. And I got to say, I didn’t love the fire. First, it was very, very big. I thought it was going to reach out and singe my furs. I’m a short-haired fellow. I don’t have many furs to spare. Second, I got all tangled up in the hose which was not very comfortable. And third, smoke makes me sneeze.

I went into the garden to check it out last Saturday. It’s not as sniffy as it used to be. But it didn’t make me sneeze either. I rolled around a bit ’cause that’s what I used to like to do in the long grass. It felt different, but it was okay.

Julia was not very happy after I rolled, and she decided to cover up all the ash.

She and Matt got out the World’s Biggest Tarp. Matt probably should have stayed with her in the garden ’cause it took her a long time to get that tarp unfolded. I dunno what’s so difficult. She’s got thumbs!

Even though she used the World’s Biggest Tarp, it still wasn’t big enough for the garden. Then she decided to use the big roll of carpet she found beside the garden. It wasn’t frozen anymore–I walked all over it and sniffed to make sure–but she still had a really hard time moving it.

Julia vs. the carpet was more interesting than Julia vs. the tarp, but she didn’t make a video of that one. I was sunbathing, but I opened my eyes every so often to watch.

I got up when she went to get Wiley. I keep an eye on that tractor. It took them a couple of tries, but they finally got the carpet into the front end loader. Then Wiley carried the carpet around the fence and dumped it in the garden. He’s pretty helpful even though he doesn’t have thumbs either.

It still took Julia a long time to lay the carpet all out, but eventually it was spread out in the garden. Even though the carpet was wet and dirty and buggy and had plants growing in it, it was nicer to lay on than the pokey dry weeds.

Julia wasn’t any happier when I laid on the carpet than she was when I rolled in the ash. After my afternoon walk with Matt, he took me from the front door right into the bathtub. That was not my favourite part of the weekend. Honestly, what’s the matter with a few smudges on my furs!

The carpet and the World’s Biggest Tarp and two other little tarps still aren’t enough to cover the whole garden. Plus, some of them blew around in the wind, and we had to spread them out again the other day.

I think we’re going to be working in the “garden” for awhile yet. Hopefully it starts to look like a garden soon.

Scorched earth

Posted on April 13, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Hello everyone. Happy Monday. I hope you all had a great weekend. I feel like I need another weekend to recover from my weekend. It was super productive, so I am wiped.

You’ll see Saturday’s project in my One Room Challenge post later this week. Today, I have to talk about Sunday’s project. Sunday turned out to be a good garden day.

In my last garden update, I mentioned my plan to use the longe ring. I also mentioned my dilemma of how to clear it of weeds.

By Sunday, I had a bit of a plan of how to start. I also had a sidekick: my oldest nephew.

He loves being at the farm, and he and I work really well together. We also share another unique trait, which I’ll talk about in a minute.

Step one was to cut a new opening in the fence. There’s a gate, but it’s on the wrong side of the ring. Nick selected what he thought would be the best location for the new gate. I ran the saw, he used the drill and then the hammer to knock off the boards (yes, they were both nailed and screwed to the posts).

Voilà, access.

Then came the slightly dicey part of my plan–and the opportunity to exercise Nick’s and my shared trait: pyromania.

We piled some of the cardboard that’s been amassing in the driveshed in the middle of the ring. And then we lit it on fire.

After a bit of a slow start, things started to take off. And then they really took off. It wasn’t that bad though. I only hurled myself over the fence once to get away from the flames. And poor Baxter nearly strangled only once when he got tangled in the hose.

We quickly got everything under control. Nick ran the hose while I directed the fire with a rake.

When the smoke cleared, I still had a nephew, I still had a dog and I still had a fence around the ring.

But I didn’t have any weeds left. Yay!

Nick and I had been really careful to keep the fire inside the ring, so I spent another few hours hacking at the weeds outside the ring with my trusty rake. My plan is to have Matt mow a single loop around the outside of the ring to try and keep the weeds on the field side of the fence, so I needed to clear a path for him.

Three quarters of the way around the ring I found something that’s going to be harder to get rid of than the weeds.

Anyone need some carpet?

Who says, “I’ve got a huge roll of carpet. Let’s carry it out to the field and leave it there?” How is this a reasonable disposal option?

The carpet is either frozen or rooted to the ground, and by the time I found it I had pretty much lost the ability to raise my arms above my shoulders. So removing it will be a project for a future weekend.

But for now, let’s look at the garden!

You can actually see all of it for the first time. You can see the fence on the far side. You can tell it’s a ring.

Sure there’s still a long way to go, but some major progress has been made.

I’m pretty sure the roots of the weeds are still living, so tilling the soil is still going to be a challenge.

On my last post, Meghan suggested covering the ground with tarps for a few weeks to kill the weeds. I’ve read about this technique before, so now that the weeds are knocked down I think I might give it a try.

Once I regain the use of my arms, that is.

What did you do with your weekend? Have you ever done a controlled (or not-so-controlled) burn before? How about using a tarp to kill weeds? Any tips?

Put a ring on it

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Thanks so much to everyone who gave their advice on my vegetable garden post the other week. Everyone’s input was really helpful. Also helpful? Being home for a week. It allowed me to spend some time outside and develop my plans.

It also allowed me to change my plans.

The location I’d planned to put the garden just isn’t going to work. See that big wooden thing in the background? Our beautiful barn?

Obviously there’s a large tree too, but the barn is the bigger problem–literally. Because of the barn’s size, it casts a prodigious shadow. Too much of a shadow for a veggie garden, I’m afraid.

So new plan: Matt’s goat ring (aka the longe ring), gets to stay. It’s sunshiney pretty much all day. I’ll build the garden inside the ring.

Bonus: the fence is already in place. I don’t have to drill holes, set posts, or hammer boards.

Quandry: I have to break up the really thick sod somehow. This ring has been growing weeds for years. My father-in-law and mother both think I need to call our farmer for help. I’ve seen his tractors, though, and I’m concerned there’s nothing that will fit inside the ring. Remember, preserving the fence is a key bonus of using this spot.

Quandry 2: I’m not quite sure how to arrange a garden that is shaped like a ring. I usually think in terms of grids and boxes and rows. Arcs and pie wedges are hard to work out in my mind. Here’s a preliminary idea.

I feel like I need to get the ring cleared of grass and weeds so that I can see what I’m working with. It’s 56 feet across. That’s an area of roughly 2,462 square feet. Too big to wrap my head around. I’m not even sure I can fit it on a piece of paper at a scale of 1 foot=1/2 an inch.

Once I get it cleared, staking out the planting beds will be the first step. I have a suspicion that I’m going to have to cut some of the quadrants into slices. But first I need to understand how much space I actually have, what size beds will work and how much I’m going to be able to plant.

I’d still appreciate your advice, though. Any tips for working in the round? How much space do you think I need between beds? What would you plant? How would you lay things out?

Help plan the vegetable garden

Posted on March 13, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I’m starting to think about my vegetable garden.

You may recall that this garden does not exist yet. Even moreso right now since everything is still buried in snow.

However, that’s not stopping me from thinking about layouts and plants and dimensions and fencing and fertilizer and trellises and… and… and…

The garden is my one and only outdoor project for this year.

Would you help me with planning, please?

The objective is to turn the patch of burr bushes behind this little picket fence…

Into a bucolic oasis like this.

A beautiful country vegetable garden from Country Living

Source: Country Living

No sweat, right?

Here’s what I’ve sorted out so far.

I’m going to dismantle what Matt calls the “goat ring” (I think it’s a longeing ring for horses) to get my fencing.

Under this mound of snow, I have a stash of wood posts that I can use either for fencing or for edging the garden beds.

I’ve collected a few rolls of chain link that will be helpful to keep small hungry critters from munching on my produce.

Aaaaaand that’s about all I have so far.

Next week is spring break. I’m taking a vacation from the day job, which means a little more time at home to work on projects. One project is starting to map out the garden.

I don’t think I can do much more than that until the snow melts.

I’m going to be taking a break from the blog for the week too. While I’m away, I’d really appreciate it if you could offer your suggestions for the garden.

What should I plant? How should I organize the garden? What dimensions are best for the individual beds? How big should the garden be overall? What’s the best way to get rid of the burr bushes and prepare the soil? Do you have a garden yourself? What grows best for you? Are there any garden blogs I should be reading? Thanks in advance for your help.