Once Again to the Remote Garden

A year ago February, my daughter Izzy gave me the idea to reclaim the garden that once existed here. She took this pic of me surveying the great clumps of grasses. The drawback was it was some distance from the house and  it had no water supply.

First, I mowed and then scalped the grass down with the weed-eater.

                             There were some sapling tree roots to dig out.

                                        Then I dug up half of it with a shovel.

                  Then I ran Tillie over it and planted some tomatoes up there.

 Then came the drought that finished off all that work.

So, last week, before the rains came, I went up there again and considered starting over. My kitchen garden has limited space now that the old strawberries are still there and grasses and weeds are fighting for control of the neighborhood.

My big old Troy-Bilt had been unused for about three years, on account of limited turning space in the kitchen garden. I wanted it up in the other garden but the path up through the woods was too steep.

It dawned on me that whatever work it took to get the Horse up there would be less effort than more digging with a shovel. Half of the garden had been tilled but the other half needed to be worked.

There was the possibility of taking the tiller along the road and down through the Yeller's abandoned place, but that would require disconnecting a chain link fence that had overgrown with enormous poison ivy vines.

My self-propelled mower, named Fearless, was called into service to mow up the steep hill, over the plot and adjacent to it. Then I mowed a path through the grass and poison ivy down past the old falling-down fishing shack, where a section of fallen tree had finally rotted enough to make passage possible. Then it was down the slope to the big hill back to the house.

With fresh gas, the big tiller surprised me by starting right up. I drove it up the hill (the place is all hills) to the house, where I gave it oil and grease and aired up the tires. We set off down the big hill and up the new path to the Remote Garden. It was like moving a house: all prep and a very slow journey.

For years at the farm, Izzy and I used that powerful tiller to have a wonderful 90x90 foot garden of fabulous loam. After that, I used it to create better soil for a garden at my house in town. Even though the tiller is now 35 years old, it is still a hard worker. That's the fishing shack in the distance.

The far end does need more tilling, but the rest of the 8x20 plot was lovely loam after a few passes. I planted green and wax beans, onion sets, cucumbers, dill, butternut squash, sweet potato slips and zucchini in the best part. Some scraggly tomato plants were relegated to the turfy part, where they will probably not flourish.

There is a slight slope to the land there, but uphill there is lots of room for expansion. I left the Troy-Bilt there, carefully covered and ready to go. I just have to cut down a few more sapling trees with the chain saw and dig the roots out with a shovel. Big Red and I will make those grasses sorry they ever invaded our turf.