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Sunday, January 4, 2009

My big garden plans keep getting bigger



Ok so we are going to put a vegetable garden in this spring. I'm very excited; however I have; as Pop says; little people talking to me in my head all the time even while I have a coherent conversation with you about something else. I've been stewing about this garden for quite a while and the little people have been working out all the details and trying to get it all laid out and planned so that when spring comes we're good to go.



As my lovely wife said earlier; I'm in the financial industry and in the past usually hire bigger jobs out for other professionals to do. This is my latest foray into a do-it-yourself farmers life. I wanted a gate on the garden, and it just so happened that we had a 12' cattle gate and a 12' opening between posts with hinges. So all I had to do was put it there and make it work. To you who are good with your hands this might seem easy; however 6 hours into the project; as any home project goes, it kept getting bigger. The gate was totally messed up on one end so I had to hammer it all back out and bolt it back together...what fun hammering the tar out of something for an hour...especially with the financial markets falling around us; it's therapeutic!



The picture above is a view of the gate and behind it where the garden will be (roughly a 50' X 70' spot).





Again this is a shot of the hinge side that I beat the tar out of and bolted back together...then had to add length to the bottom hinge so that it'd fit. Again, I had to get ingenuitive (I know this is a word however I have NO spelling in me what-so-ever; on another note they say that spelling isn't a measure of intelligence!).



I then realized that this gate would be best served with a wheel, and of course it didn't come out of the junk pile with one on it already so I thought...where might I have seen a wheel and could I attach it to the gate? I just happened to remember walking around the farm with Pop earlier this week or last and we found this lawn mower wheel in a storage shed along with some mower handles. So I went and got one of each...then re-engineered the handle to fit the wheel and bolt it all to the gate. Again, for someone like me; it took around an hour to an hour and a half.


I must say though...I AM VERY PROUD OF MYSELF! After all of this I spent about 45 minutes measuring exactly where every t-post will be and plot the exact dimensions of the garden so that I can plot it out on the computer and plan for where I want to put what vegetable. Can we say type "A" personality.

3 comments:

  1. Strong work, EJ! Can't wait to eat veggies next year out of our garden!

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  3. It looks totally fab. I would love to come and work in your garden for food. When you live in the country, you have to feed your neighbors, you know???

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