Vale of Tiers

Sometimes, a person has to accept less than ideal land.  Since I especially wanted a river of my own, one that would stay out of my house, I had to compromise with a hilly place.  Okay, it's steep.  The front yard is level but shallow.  The gravel road is so close I'd surely choke on road dust if I tried to have a vegetable garden there.

There was a fairly level spot that I planted with tomatoes, but this was not the right year for carrying water up there.  See A Remote Possibility.  Next summer promises to have lots of Sun activity, so I'm back to terracing the garden close to the water faucet.

Down at one of the intermittent stream beds, I found these odd cement cylinders.  Four a day was my limit for carrying them individually up the steep hill to Rosie, the garden tractor. I trust I burned plenty of calories.

Apparently, the cement was poured into plastic forms, which I found I could cut off.  Not a clue as to what they were originally used for, but I had an idea for another short tier at the end of the garden. It didn't seem like much of a slope there, but the precious dirt was slip-sliding away.

Yesterday, the soil was once again, after months of waiting, workable.  Yay!  Tillie seemed to suffer from lethargy, though.  The air filter was clean.  I thought if it was water in the gas, the little tiller would pass it, but it was dogging out.  Guiltily, I admitted that the gas/oil mixture was not the freshest.  Once I swapped it for a new batch, Tillie roared to life and tilled in some of those fabulous cow pies.

Always dictated to by the weather, I had to get the tier in place before rains forecast for tomorrow arrive.  Too much heat and sun made me wary of the enterprise, since I am a shade tree gardener.

The answer was this shade gizmo I rigged up.  The frame was from a Compost Tumbler that had rusted out. The gears that turned the tumbler are now the wheels for this portable shade unit.  A piece of steel siding is the top.

Although I started out doing precision work, leveling the cylinders in all directions, I soon lowered my standards.  Tight together and the same level as the preceding one seemed more than adequate.

There are more of these cement plugs to carry up and put in place, when the heat tapers off a bit. For now, it's a powerful  thirteen-cylinder barricade.  These foot-tall guys look like the tiny offspring of the enormous cement grain bins awaiting barges above the Missouri River in Kansas City.  Here, they look like they are in the garden nursery until they reach transplanting size.

Tonight, when it gets shady, I'll level the soil with Tillie and plant a cover crop for the fall and winter.  The cow pies under the tub can be worked in on the adjacent level, too.

I'm really proud of this dirt.  It started out with topsoil thin on the ground. I added manure, compost, bits of charcoal from the wood stove, egg shells, limestone granules, leaves, topsoil from down at the river and kitchen scraps to achieve this incredible loam.  It's beautiful, which explains why I don't want any of it washing away in the rain. It's mine now and I intend to keep it.

This spring, before the drought kicked in, this little 4x8 foot plot produced some delicious veggies. I got a nice harvest of snow peas, carrots, radishes and turnips.  Later in the summer, it had a bumper crop of deep cracks, but I've removed all traces of  the drought disaster, at least in this one little spot.  Now if it will only rain.