12:08 PM [28 May 2007 | Monday] |
A Minor Mishap |
Woke up this morning all set to plant but before I started I wanted to get an umbrella for the table in the garden area to shade the potatoes before I planted them. I went into the shed that is overflowing with junk, located both parts of the umbrella, the top part (umbrella with handle), the bottom part (where top part snaps in). Coming out of the shed I tripped and the top of the bottom half of the umbrella stand hit the ground and smashed into the left side of my face just below my lower lip. It hit hard. I didn't pass out but I knew this might be serious so I felt my teeth, no loose ones, which I took as a good sign. Ran back to the house and gently told my wife, "I think I might have hurt myself." I looked in the mirror and saw the half circle outline of the umbrella stand accenting the line of my lower lip like some macabre grin. The cut wasn't bleeding at all, my inner cheek was bleeding, I'd chomped off quite a bit of my cheek but it was manageable. I then spent a half hour icing my jaw, which appeared to function even though sore. This being Memorial Day, "From Here to Eternity" was on and I watched a scene from the movie where Montgomery Clift gets beaten down by his platoon because he refuses to box, but he gets back up and stands by his convictions. So after realizing I wasn't seriously hurt, I too got up and went to plant those potatoes.
I use a pick axe to make a long furrow, then I dig out the dirt, then pick axe the furrow to loosen the soil so the potato roots have somewhere to go.
We pulled out the potatoes and some of them were moldy, some weren't, after much gnashing of teeth (ouch) we tossed the moldy ones and planted:
Ruby Gold, Purple Majesty, German Butterball and Burbank Russets.
Then we planted beets:
Forono, Golden, Detroit Red, Cylindra, Chioggia and a new fast grower, Crosby Egypt.
Then my wife planted New York Early onions, babies breath and marigolds in the cabbage patch.
I replanted the peas because only a paltry amount came up from the last planting.
I then iced my jaw. The left side of my face looks like a combination of Marlon Brando in the Godfather and Jack Nicholson's Joker in Batman. I was able to eat my dinner without any pain so hopefully the injury is not serious. This gardening is exciting.
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Mood: determined
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10:32 AM [27 May 2007 | Sunday] |
Tiller Is Fixed! |
5.27.07
Good news, the local auto parts shop had plenty of roto-tiller belts. I bought two. With unerring skill I deftly replaced the belt and fired up the Troy Bilt Pony Roto-tiller. I tilled the entire garden! Like a knife through butter. Butter that has lots of rock. Crunchy butter. I tilled all the gardens while my wife made 16 hanging baskets and five planters of flowers most of which she grew. Where on earth does she get this stuff? I also mowed all the grass around the gardens, finding old trowels, destroying another water gauge. But we’re ready to go! Tomorrow we do the potatoes.
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Mood: bouncy
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10:22 AM [26 May 2007 | Saturday] |
@#$#@* Roto-Tiller! |
This week I met a man named Bernard. It wasn't at a social occasion, he was the person who turned out to be fixing my roto-tiller troy bilt tiller. My neighbor, who I haven't seen for two and a half years, Robert, turned up this spring with all of his incredible pent up energy. In the middle of his routines about woman and people whom he had set straight, I mentioned that my roto tiller was broken, it couldn't get a spark, I'd changed the spark plug but that was the extent of my expertise. Robert, a former marine and proud of it, said he'd take it to the local hardware store that works on these things for me, as I don't have a pickup truck, but I do have a Jeep with a trailer hitch, but I 'm not comfortable driving a trailer to which Robert responds, "I have a trailer, I told you, you could use it anytime". When I lamely point out once again that I'm not trailer trained, he offers to take the roto-tiller to the hardware store for me, for which I am grateful. He tells me to leave it in the front yard and he'll take it in the morning. I covered the tiller with a brown tarp, I find those are much less intrusive than those blue tarps which must be left over from an earlier time.
That morning I get up early, seven o'clock, and I notice that the tarp is off the tiller. So I know someone must have gone by and looked at it, Robert, I presume. Later he comes back and says let's put it in the back of the truck, and as we're positioning it he tells me those guys at the local hardware store aren't any good, he's taking it to another guy, someone who knows small engines, inside and out. Distracted, I don't think anything of this, I'm just happy he's taking it somewhere and soon it will come back fixed. That's the way I was raised, there is always someone who can fix things.
So I tell my wife about the tiller arrangement, and immediately, like the sharp cookie she is, she asks, who exactly did he take the tiller to? At that moment, realize, I have no answer. I have no idea where the tiller is, and I understand that this could be a problem. Robert a man we know and tolerate, has taken our tiller somewhere to be fixed and we can only hope that someday, it will come back. After assuring my wife that everything will be okay I retreat into the fraught world we inhabit in our minds when we realized we might have made a mistake.
One week goes by, then two weeks, each day the question is asked, "Where is our tiller?"
My standard answer, a meek "I don't know, but Robert says his guy is working on it." does not seem to suffice. I begin to feel like a person who lent their car to a casual friend, who sends it to a chop shop and says it was stolen.
My friend, Robert is now going to Florida, he has to leave soon, I ask, where is the roto-tiller?! He says he had to get a new part for it, drove for an hour, then it was the wrong part, they said it was a universal part, apparently it wasn't this universe, so he had to get it again, the right part, another hour, but Bernard says it's finally the right part.
Now Robert starts telling me that Bernard is an odd guy, a hermit, an ex-Viet-Nam vet, like that means something. When people tell you someone is an ex Viet-Nam vet I'm not sure what it's supposed to mean. Does that mean he's crazy, friendly, world weary, or should we just not got there. He says, your wife would probably be scared of him, I say if he doesn't hand over our tiller he's going to be scared of her. Robert says, I gotta leave tomorrow for Florida, I'll take you over to meet him. He says, Bernard lives way back in the woods, you'd never be able to find him, so I say, that's where we live, how bad can it be?
So the next morning, he takes me over to see him but he tells me it's too early, he won't be awake, but he wants to show me where he lives because there is no way I'd ever find it. So we pull up, to a beautiful location, it's filled with lawn tractors, lots of Kraftmans, and there's a classic 1940's car that Bernard is working on for some rich guy, and the house is a trailer type of thing. Robert shows it to me and says we got to go, he has to be on the road before 10:00 AM.
So later in the day, I screw up my courage and drive out to Bernard's without an introduction, but what the hell, I worked for years as a Bartender in Times Square, dealing with all sorts of people, how bad could he be? I pulled up into the driveway, past the sign that says this property is patrolled, honk before you get to the house. I honk, just in case it isn't a joke. Then I turn off the engine, open the car door and say, "Hello? Bernard?" I identify myself as the man with the broken roto-tiller, information I assume will keep me from being shot. An incredibly scruffy looking small dog, Lhasa Apso looking, comes running toward me barking, which I take as a good sign, at least there's not a Rottweiler with an attitude, unless it's the Rottweiler's frontman. I hear a voice from below the car, "Just a minute". It's Bernard, I assume. I pet the little dog, who is incredibly friendly, a sweetheart and Bernard rolls out from under the car. We talk about the roto-tiller and he tells me that it just needed that one part and now it's fine, he just has to put it back together. Then we get to talking about things and the talk turns to an invention he made for gold mining and I mention Alaska is the place to gold mine, I'd spent two vacations there and it is a gold miner's paradise among other things. His face lights up, his sister told him he should go to Alaska and he'd said he'd always wanted to go there since he was a young man but, he'd never gone and regretted it deeply. I said he should go now, it's a paradise, the way the entire world used to be before civilization took over.
He tells me to give him a call tomorrow and he'll have the tiller ready, I do. The next morning his brother in law, Rick, a taciturn man I'd met the day before calls me and say, you'd better come pick it up now, it's ready. My wife asks how much do you think he'll charge. I say I have no idea (my standard answer). Then I counter, Robert says it wouldn't be much! But this hardly helps matters. Turns out it was only forty bucks, he delivered it, I gave him an extra ten. I tilled the garden for an hour and the belt broke. Now I'm hunting for an extra. On the positive side my wife planted many flowers yesterday and before the weekend is done that garden will be in.
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Mood: None, or other
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12:29 PM [08 May 2007 | Tuesday] |
Garden Update |
The lettuce is in the ground as of April 29. The roto-tiller is still broken but I used the pickax to till the soil and it wasn’t so bad. Of course when it’s 50 F it’s not quite the chore it could be. I then pick-axed the pea area and the shallot area (on Sunday May 6) and got both planted. The peas are Pinetree Cascadia which should yield 30 inch vines, I have planted them next to a short fence on which they’ll climb and the Pikant Shallot Sets are from Johnny’s. I planted the garlic last fall and it’s coming along nicely.
I have several plans for taking care of my pest problem this summer. One is the slug saloon from American Organic Products. We bought one of these several years ago but never put it out, it just got lost in the jumble that is my gardening life. The label says it is a non-toxic, chemical free formula, pet and child safe and is not in any way harmful to the environment. So I’ll give it a whirl. In the past I’ve tried beer traps but they fill with water and it never really seemed like it was doing anything to keep down the huge population of slugs. We also have a growing population of snails, something that has increased in the past two years, never had them in any large quantity before that, hopefully they’ll also fall for the trap.
The next bug deterrent, Milky Spore Powder (from San Gabriel Laboratories) for control of Japanese beetles. This is a long term product that can take up to several seasons to be really effective but you have to start somewhere. I’ll also use the Safer Japanese Beetle traps, which are deadly effective but you want to get those out there at the right time (early June for me). I didn’t get them out until late July early August after the Japanese Beetles had destroyed much of our plants and trees and as a result of their exponential procreating habits the bags got very full. These work by attracting the beetle with a sex lure and a food lure. I keep them in the garden because I’ve had critters break open the bag to check them out (some creatures will eat anything). Also place them downwind of the garden to draw beetles away. I’ll post a picture of the trap in action in my Garden Foes group.
The next line of defense is the sticky whitefly trap from Safer. I’ve never used them but if they kill whiteflies, they get my vote.
And last, for now, we ordered a “Cucumber beetle attract” (that’s all it says) from Johnny’s, there is precious little info about it on the package so we’ll see what happens. Last year my cucumbers were destroyed by cucumber beetles and they swarmed over all the squash plants. We’d never seen them in any quantity before and I hope this will do something.
This weekend also saw the arrival of the hummingbirds and the rose-breasted grosbeaks. You know it’s spring now. Last week saw the arrival of the black bear unfortunately so the feeders have to come in at night.
To conclude, a neighbor with a truck showed up and offered to take my roto-tiller into town to be fixed but he didn’t take it to who I thought he was going to take it to. Now I’m not sure where it is. The neighbor is still here. But where of where is my roto-tiller?
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Mood: cheerful
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