[AT] Old time gardens - Rambling on... :-)

[Robinson]

At 03:11 PM 10/13/04, you wrote:
>Cecil,
>
>Our friend Frobl (Farmer) is experimenting with raised beds.  Well... 
>maybe it's Diana, but in any event, they look pretty good.  With a little 
>encouragement I think he would write a ramble we would all enjoy.
>
>George Willer


         I am fond of raised beds and have used different forms of them for 
years. Carl in NY didn't seem to think that 6" made all that much 
difference which tells me that he must be younger than I am. I would prefer 
having 8" to 10" but if 6" is all you have it makes all of the 
difference...   ;-)
         I have observed that "they" keep moving the ground lower each year 
and that no amount of hauling in fill makes it any easier to reach. I'm 
considering going to thinner soled shoes. Diana doesn't really care that 
much for my intensive bed gardening. She still prefers the old time wide 
row planting. A couple of her brothers were looking at my current cut out 
tire beds which are in a circle around a tractor rear with the sidewall cut 
out that is full of strawberries. They admitted to chuckling about them 
until they felt the dirt and realized that they could shove their hand way 
down in the loose soil with ease. One is now planning to set up a couple of 
rear tires for his strawberries this fall. Those tires with the sidewalls 
cut out are great for string-trimming around. The line can slap them silly 
and not hurt the string or the tire.
         I have gardened all of my life but don't call myself an expert on 
it. In recent years we have not used as much home grown stuff as we used 
to. I just grow something like the pumpkins which I can sell to pay for 
what we buy. Most of the garden stuff is high labor and the pumpkins are 
low labor. I find that as we get older we shift values a lot.  There are 
too many things I can make a few bucks at quickly to spend more hours 
gardening and canning than we find to be fun. Too much other stuff I want 
to do.  Most of the time these days if I have a question about growing 
vegetables I usually drop an email to H. L. Staples...   :-)
         In flat gardening I much prefer cultivator shovels to a 
roto-tiller. I have a Horse Troybilt that I have not used in years. Talk 
about something that can pack down a hard "plow pan". It is ok but that 
compaction layer must be broken up yearly. I don't know if the bigger 
tractor tillers compact that bad or not. Probably in bed situations with 
good tilth and high organic matter they are fine. Most of the secret is 
just staying off of the soil all you can especially if it is wet. My tire 
beds are about 1/2 soil and 1/2 composted wood chips. Next year we will 
have both raised beds and some large flat garden with raised ridges much 
like ridge-till ridges.
         Starting this week we are setting up a small farm market stand. We 
have always been selling something or the other and are just going to 
slowly expand on that. We sold hundreds and hundreds of pumpkins since the 
first of this month and only have about 50 left. We also sold quite a few 
bales for decorations. We are now selling a few eggs again and are going to 
put a fridge under a small porch we have for them until the stand is up. 
The stand will only be an about 10' x 12' building near the house where we 
will sell stuff on the honor system (locked at night). Selling the pumpkins 
that way worked very well.
         We plan to keep a few bales of hay and straw in there all of the 
time as well as a few bags of shelled corn, ear corn (squirrel feed), oats 
etc.  We have a lot of people that want to buy hay or straw just a bale or 
two at a time. This will save us having to fire up a truck and go get them 
a couple of bales especially when we are busy.
         We are also going to keep some bundled fireplace wood there.
         Mostly will be a dollar here, dollar there. It will never make us 
rich but will pay for an occasional sandwich at Burger-doodle...   :-)

         How was that for an incoherent ramble?   ;-)



"farmer"

Francis Robinson
Central Indiana, USA
robinson at svs.net