Two Of My Favorite Things Part 2
Day 2, 3 & 4
Today I spent all day working on this raised bed project. Beautiful sunny day and a great breeze. The only downside was the dang mean blackflies! Here in Maine, the blackflies are vicious! But with that great breeze and good bug spray, I did okay.
For the first few hours this morning I spent measuring and leveling these blocks. Far from perfect but it works.
After lunch, I started measuring and cutting the lumber. Being the handy person that I'm not I found out that the circular saw I have doesn't quite cut through 2 inch thick lumber. So there was a lot of hand sawing too. Not too bad though. Also, note to self for future reference the saw was battery powered so it would have been nice if I had been charging the second battery while using the first. Live and learn right.
Overall the project went smoothly...not too many issues and if not for waiting for the battery to charge, it would have taken me probably 3 hours instead of all day.
The beds were not as long as I wanted, however they were a bit wider than I had plan which is okay.
And look what I found! Probably about 10 years ago my sister was visiting us from Arizona. She and my Mom when antiquing and I had to work. She had brought me home this cast iron bug that looked like a fly. I thought it was kind of cool so I set in on the porch railing to watch over my gardens. One day I noticed it was missing so I looked all over the ground, but never found it. I did find it much later only to lose it again. This time though I thought I had lost if forever which did upset me. I like my bug and the fact that my sister gave it to me had meaning to me.
When I was prepping the area for the raised bed I noticed this oddly shaped rock. I looked at it closer and soon realized it was my BUG!!! I was so excited!! I couldn't believe after all these years I finally found my BUG! It definitely needed some TLC with a good wire brush, but now it looks almost new again! Take a look at the before and after photo above. And it will stay inside with my other cast iron bugs. Yes, I have an ant and a ladybug. We all have our quirks.
The soil arrived, but it was late in the day. So I laid down some cardboard to keep the weeds out and to encourage some earthworm activity and to discourage weeds. This cardboard will slowly breakdown over the next few years. I made sure there wasn't any plastic tape on the boxes since it will not break down.
The next day I spent at least 2 hours filling up these beds. Boy oh boy to me that was the hardest part of this whole process! I had to fill my wheelbarrow push it about 30 feet to the beds...for someone who isn't much for heavy work this was killing me, but I was determined to get it done.
Next time I will be adding seeds and I'll tell you about a few visitors I had...stay tuned.
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