Thursday, August 29, 2013

Wake Up,Pop! I Have Another Great Idea!

As you know, I have persuaded Pop to help me build a really nice raised bed. My first REAL raised bed, although I have toyed with various versions over the past 40+ years. Pop has never been comfortable with my way of gardening. He has always kept a traditional garden. You know the kind. Where you must sow a cover crop where you had last years garden,then in the early Spring, at just the right time, you drag our the tractor, plow the ground, turning under the cover crop to give it just the right amount of time to decay, but don't plow it too wet. It will leave huge hard clods which are impossible to break up later. Then at just the right time, you must disc the garden spot,working up the soil to a fine bug dust. Fertilize it. Lime it. Heaven only knows what I've missed. Pop usually does all of that, but he is no longer able to do all that it requires to keep up a traditional garden.(Well, to put it bluntly,we are getting too old to keep it up.) Oh, yes! I forgot all the hoeing and weeding it requires to keep it maintained. Neither of our backs are what they once were.These are only a few of the reasons why I prefer the raised type beds. Mainly, no tractor and heavy equipment involved. No long rows to keep hoeing and weeding. No water hoses to drag in and out daily.I could go on and on with the pros and cons of the traditional garden verses the raised bed garden, but I'll stop there and show you my plan for watering my new raised bed.This is most likely not a new idea to the rest of the world, but I awoke this morning with this great plan(at least I think it's a great plan). I tried to awaken Pop, but he'd rather sleep in. After all, it was mere 5 a.m. when I tried to awaken him and tell him about my plan.Here it is.

This is a diagram of my bed. I have a black plastic tube cut to the length of the bed. I have drilled holes all along the entire length of the tube, about 6 inches apart . I have capped both ends. I have drilled a larger hole at one end in which I have added another smaller tube and glued it in place. The smaller tube will protrude above the ground at one end of the bed, while the entire length of the larger tube,about 1-2  inches in diameter,will be buried beneath the soil,down the middle of the bed, about 8 inches deep. I will insert a funnel in the smaller tub at the end, and pour in X amount of water (to be determined as I go) daily.  I plan to keep a bucket of water (possibly a weak manure tea solution) at the bed side at all times for watering. Sounds like a good plan to me, but I will most likely need to iron out a few wrinkles as I go along.

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