13 comment(s):

• Looks like a little scorched earth warfare in your contest with the berries!
  
  You say you're starting a garden, but I have my doubts. It sure looks like your cutting peat...
  
  

  By  Unknown, at 3/14/2005 09:56:00 AM  

• Cutting sod anyway. Most of the garden hasn't been worked in ten years. Besides evergreens, one plant that does exceedingly well in our damp cool climate is grass. I cut squares with the shovel and lifted them out one by one. I probably could have built a sod house, well a sod house for little people anyway.
  
  Back and hands are sore today but in a good way.
  
  Question One: How much space should I put in between my potato starts?
  
  Question Two: Besides potatoes, onions, peas, and lettuce, what cool weather crops can I put in now?
  
  Blackberry Brushfire Wars: Scorched Earth Policy Ai ai. I chopped and raked everything away. Next I'll dig root balls and use the venturi burner on any plants that show green shoots. Probably around June 1st grass seed and watering will commence. We're going for a reverse domino theory - one more section of berries gets reclaimed for grass and blueberry bushes each spring.
  
  Yesterday I got to buy my first power tool in I don’t know how long – probably since we built the deck. I got a new MVT brand 5 hp garden rototiller. I was able to till up all the beds in an hour or two, after spending maybe ten hours spading them! I tried the tiller on some un-spaded ground. It chewed its way through but slowly and I had to spend more time pulling grass out of the tines. I think it will be faster to just continue with the pre-tilling spading.
  
  

  By  Scott in Washington, at 3/14/2005 10:15:00 AM  

• My Grandpa gets rid of blackberries the old fashioned way - with a goat. Just keep moving the tether so that the goat eats swaths of bushes. They'll eat your trees too, so you have to protect those with wire fencing.
  
  

  By  Kasmira, at 3/14/2005 10:53:00 AM  

• We had a goat when I was a kid. It was my job to move him around and see that he had water. His name was (poor) Yorick - a right, big, mean bastard he was too. He had shaggy white hair and fairly straight horns and always smelled like urine. I swear he had learned to take pleasure in wrapping his chain around my legs and dragging me through the brambles. When I was about twelve he died of pneumonia and I didn’t shed a tear. I’ve thought about getting a goat but we really don’t have enough area to keep one in feed all year. Maybe we can find a part-time goat. Rent-a-goat?
  
  

  By  Scott in Washington, at 3/14/2005 11:16:00 AM  

• I plant my potato starts a shovel handle a part, that is how I measure everything, mainly because it is handy and it just seems to work out perfect. Brocolli can be planted now just watch it careful...but I never plant early to high in the hills and I loose a lot of it. WOW a new tiller, I bet you were having a lot more fun than by hand. We have never had a problem with BB so your on your own there, the deadly spray my folks used that they breathed into their lungs pretty well took care of them for life.
  How could you hate a goat..maybe you deserved to be drug around by the chain :)
  
  

  By  Anonymous, at 3/14/2005 11:29:00 AM  

• kaz-
  Three of our neighbors have goats, I think eventually we'll be able to work into the rotation..they're all babies now, and they are doing some serious damage!
  
  

  By  Anonymous, at 3/14/2005 11:42:00 AM  

• Those two across the way are pygmies. Thats as big as they'll get. Who else has a goat in valley?
  
  

  By  Scott in Washington, at 3/14/2005 11:54:00 AM  

• Another question for the group:
  
  I foolishly participated in the smelt dipping last year. For those who don't know the "fighting smelt" is the mascot of the local college debate team and is also an oily little fish that looks similar to a sardine and swims yearly up the rivers around here. When the smelt come in, everyone is allowed to go down to the river and dip one five gallon bucket per night without a permit or license.
  
  I say foolishly because on a whim the neighbor and I went down and dipped our limit when we heard they were running without first thinking what we would DO with the little guys once we had them. Neither of us own a smoker, and I wasn't about to clean and fillet 250 - 300 little fish. I endeded dividing mine into groups of ten and freezing them, wrapped in plastic shopping bags. I bet Brit wouldn't mind if I got them out of the basement freezer and I know that the English were using similar fish to fertilize their crops long before the pilgrims set foot in the Americas.
  
  The question is what should I do or how exactly should I deploy these smelly little fertilizer sticks?
  
  

  By  Scott in Washington, at 3/14/2005 12:03:00 PM  

• the good dog people have a goat, victor....
  
  maybe we could put the smelt in the yard with the FREE sign?
  
  

  By  Anonymous, at 3/14/2005 01:00:00 PM  

• Sod goes great in the composter.
  
  I'd say a foot between those potato sets. That might be a shovel width, but more like a trowel width. And don't forget to hill them up once they get growing (and will they freaking grow).
  
  Other cold weather dudes: spinach, carrots, radishes (gag), beans...I dunno. I'm sure there are more. Dandelions. Cannabis.
  
  I've thought about borrowing friends' goats before for mowing the lawn...
  
  One night at a party out at Brenda and Paul's I was having a butting contest with Wilma, one of their full-size goats. Jammed the crap out of my thumb. She was digging it though. And I'd had a few beers.
  
  I'm sure those smelt would be dandy, that is if the 'coons or what-not didn't run off with them first.
  
  "What is that smelt? Do you smelt that smelt?"
  
  

  By  Unknown, at 3/14/2005 02:13:00 PM  

• He who smelt it...
  
  

  By  Scott in Washington, at 3/14/2005 07:00:00 PM  

• delt it...........
  
  

  By  Anonymous, at 3/19/2005 06:28:00 AM  

• delt it...........
  
  

  By  Anonymous, at 3/19/2005 06:28:00 AM  

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