Conservative Political Forum

I'm ready to start the garden.

http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/Georgetown+CA+95634:4:US

Feb. and March have been miserable here.  Bitter cold. We didn't see anything but a few mixed showers here out of all the snow events predicted for my zone but we sure got the cold air off of them.  They really have got belted just north of us.

We will get our first reprieve tomorrow with temps in the high 60's and followed by a whole week of the same.  Sure sounds like spring is on us and we're ready to start that garden too.  The 'sheriff" wants to try his luck with the built up garden, the one where you use landscape timbers and build a rectangular boxlike structure and filled it in with garden soil.  He says it will make it easier for me to help tend and harvest it. 

Feb. and March have been miserable here.  Bitter cold. We didn't see anything but a few mixed showers here out of all the snow events predicted for my zone but we sure got the cold air off of them.  They really have got belted just north of us.

We will get our first reprieve tomorrow with temps in the high 60's and followed by a whole week of the same.  Sure sounds like spring is on us and we're ready to start that garden too.  The 'sheriff" wants to try his luck with the built up garden, the one where you use landscape timbers and build a rectangular boxlike structure and filled it in with garden soil.  He says it will make it easier for me to help tend and harvest it.

My neighbor and I built raised beds at the same time and same size several years back, mine rocked and produced all kind of fruit and vegetables.
Theirs was horrible, the only difference was the wood, I used Doug fir i had just dropped, and they used pressure treated wood.
The next year they laid visquene plastic down and the garden was fine.
I guess the stuff that repels bugs and rot, also stifles plants.

Were doing another raised bed this year and I guess I'll drop a couple more trees for ST's garden, though this year I'm putting a screen over the top, the birds were worse than the deer.

Oh, we dove back into Winter, but tomorrow Spring returns, like a woman, even Mother Nature can't make up her mind.
Just kidding....

Thanks Solar, we are building the frame this coming weekend, weather permitting.  Glad to get this info because it is our first time having a raised garden.  He's for any trick that will save us time and money and of course he wants it to succeed.  What else do you suggest other than treated lumber?  We don't have access to trees to cut for ourselves.  "Sheriff" is partial to laying down plastic before planting.  We did this to all of our shribbery and didn't lose a one of them.

If he lays the plastic against the treated wood and tacks it down, that should be enough to stop the leaching of chemicals that kill plants.

I prefer treated wood because it won't rot or get eaten the first year in or on the ground.
You can always buy Trex board, recycled plastic, it lasts a lifetime. Though it's a bit expensive.

Countdown to Spring: 1 DAY 15 HR and they calling for 50% chance of rain on Mar. 20      Time to bring the lawnmower out and drain the oil and put new in.  Will be turning all the outside water back on for the year.  Have 300 lbs of fertilizer to put down before the end of the month in the yard.

I hope the weather holds, we've had years where we had early springs, only to go right back into winter for 6 weeks.
I hope this weather hold out, I'm ready to get out and get some chores accomplished.

Green House and Chicken Coop   

Green House and Chicken Coop = fertilizer for garden.

= more work for Solar.   

Looks like you got the same weather we had yesterday, but you don't want today's BS, 84 deg. and 88% humidity and sunny.
I haven't had a chance to acclimate yet, and we go from three days ago in the 40s, to this?

In the A.M. humidity is high but by 0900 it's good.  Next two days calling for 70º with 30% chance of rain for the next 4 days.  That will be great for the dry farmer up on the high ridge.  Four day of rain will be like old home week on the West side of the state.     We will see, most of the time we need 45%+ before we get rain.  It was only 90º in the sun today.   The good wife has had the A/C running for a week now.    So I have to go outside to get warm.