Last night I strung the grid on the largest bed. I didn't want to do as before and just cut lengths of twine to fit and staple it down. The twine gets loose and the staples never hold. I had an idea this time to string it in one fell swoop, winding it around nails to go back and forth and change directions. It's probably something that others have thought of and done before, but it was such an epiphany to me that I was thrilled.
I started by putting nails all around the bed measuring for each square foot. Once I had all the nails in place, I started by tying the string at a corner. I then brought it up to the one foot marker, wound it around the nail and pulled it tight to the other end of the box. I wrapped it around that nail and brought it up one nail, wrapped it around and then back to the other side, parallel to that first line. I continued this until I had strung the entire length of the box and was at the last sq ft. I then brought it to the corner wound it around and then brought it to the nail next to it in order to begin the downward lines. I continued the process I did for the length of the box and tied the end of the string to the last corner nail.
Clear as mud?
I still have those tiny mite-like bugs in my new compost. I'm not sure if they're dangerous to my seeds or if I should let them be. I wouldn't know what to treat the soil with anyway so as not to disturb the seeds.
I pulled three more good radishes from the garden and one that was infested with some tiny, long, thin bug with many, many legs.
The boy and I planted his pole beans today and the bush beans and radishes in the side bed are just about to sprout. I'm thinking about starting the squash and zuch in pots today to have them ready to transplant soon. My broccoli is about at quarter size, so I'm hoping in about 4 more weeks they'll be good to harvest. No time to wait for the side shoots this spring. That will have to wait until the fall broccoli crop.
My broccoli heads are the size of a dime, and I seriously doubt I can let them go another 4 weeks. We'll see, but they may get picked early. Your grids sound like an easy way to do it. I tie mine individually, and it takes quite a bit of time.
ReplyDeleteI've considered using nails or screws instead of stapling, but I thought I might catch things (like clothes, gloves or skin) on them. If it works well, I may do that next time. I'll end up with too many staple holes in the wood, especially when DH uses what I call the "thwacker" (a staple hammer, maybe?). He misses...
ReplyDeleteGreenbean
EG, my cauliflower won't make it by May, that's for sure. And so far, no flowers on the peas. Carrots are runty as well. I'll either need to stick to really fast growing things from now on, leave blank squares, or stick to the fall..but won't that mean pulling summer things early?
ReplyDeleteGreenbean, I thought of that, too. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to leave the grid up after planting. If I am, I'm going to hammer the nails so they fold over.
I chose the early varieties of cabbage and broccoli to help matters, but it's just been so dang cold for them to mature fast enough.....i'll be cutting some outer leaves of the plants, and moving the new ones in between them, hopefully. In reality, 3 different crops is almost impossible for our location, but 2 really good ones is easily done.
ReplyDelete