My carpentry skills are such that a trellis-like affair I once made for cucumbers was downright rickety. This year, I put up this sturdy creation from fence posts and the trellis netting. I may be feeble at carpentry, but I'm good at pounding in posts. Winds won't topple this one.
For some time, I've wanted to grow pole beans. The bean towers shown in the gardening catalogs were terribly expensive. Then I came upon a junky old TV antenna down at the pile of clutter that the Foulers left behind. Perfect, I thought. Cutting off a few feet with a hacksaw made it the right height.
I dug a hole in the last of the compost heap, soon hitting the clay layer. It was a bear to dig but tamping the clay down around the pole had the same effect as setting the pole in cement.
Ground staples hold the twine for the Kentucky Wonder pole beans to grow up, as soon as they get brave and dare to climb up the rigging of the Adventureland I've made for them. Ahoy! Cows off the starboard. Prepare to run aground, Fair Matey!
Meanwhile, the National Pickle cukes and the Cocozelle zucchini are coming on in the spot that had some soil amendments but is still mostly clay.
The water company guy, a local farmer, told me that the Foulers scraped all the topsoil off the garden area to use around the house. That explains why I've had such a struggle to grow things; I'm working with subsoil. Swell.
Up at the falling-down fishing shack, I found this handy wash tub. Pushing open the door to get the tub out, I failed to notice, on account of wearing a visor hat, that one of the ceiling 2x4's was resting on the top of the door. Had the beam not been suffering from dry rot, I'm sure it would have hurt a lot more when it bonked me on the head.
This is my simple water catchment system. Rainwater from the roof over the fruit cellar steps collects in the washtub and the other bucket. I fill kitty litter jugs from the drain in the bottom of the tub. In a normal year, the water isn't needed and in a dry year, it's barely a drop in the bucket, literally. This is turning out to be a dry year. I can think of all sorts of better schemes but they are more expensive than just running up the water bill watering the plants. Sort of a Catchment-22.
