There is more time for a late start on a new vegetable garden now. I had planed to take this and next week off from most of my work, to tend to other neglected obligations. However, under the circumstances, I am still unable to tend to many of those obligations! Well, the crew wants a new vegetable garden.

1. Before, the area was overwhelmed with a dense thicket of Himalayan blackberry brambles, that had grown up into the joists of the deck above, and over the adjacent junipers to the right.P00321-1

2. After, it is not much better. This initial phase took me half a day!! I intended to remove most or all of the junipers, but as they become exposed, it is evident that they are worth salvaging.P00321-2

3. I already know I will be sowing seed for the warm season vegetables a bit late; but this wild cucumber feels compelled to remind me. It is already past the top of this seven foot high fence.P00321-3

4. This is just some of the debris that I removed. For comparison, the animal to the lower left is a buffalo. Okay, it is really just Rhody. The dumpster is as high as the cargo container though.P00321-4

5. Okay, so that was a bit of an exaggeration. The pile really is this big, but only the small portion outlined in yellow to the upper right is from the new garden, and is only about two feet high.P00321-5

6. While up on the bridge over the debris pile, I got this picture of most of the work trucks that are not at work where they belong. Everyone else writes about it; but I have not mentioned it.P00321-6

This is the link for Six on Saturday, for anyone else who would like to participate:

https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/six-on-saturday-a-participant-guide/

31 thoughts on “Six on Saturday: New Vegetable Garden”

    1. Oh, no. It is not edible at all! The fruit contains only a few big hard seeds and empty space. It is round and prickly, like a big green sweetgum mace. I will stay safe though. They are not dangerous unless one of my colleagues throws one at me. The vines are quite weedy and aggressive at this time of year, but then die back as the weather warms in summer. I will just pull them off of the junipers and fence. The huge roots are very deep, so are not easy to dig up. I will dig out any that I find near the surface of the soil. Unfortunately, the roots are not edible either. They look like big potatoes. I found one that the River washed up two years ago. https://tonytomeo.com/2018/03/10/look-what-the-river-washed-in/

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    1. It seems like a shorter summer growing season, or cold weather lasting this late, would make gardening a bit easier. It only delays the rush. I mean, you will have the same rush, just slightly later. Besides that, sowing seed earlier to transplant out later is even more work. However, all the work is probably why people in other climates seem to enjoy gardening even more.

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    1. Your AFAC gardens are so rad! I mean, they are so refined already, and flat and accessible. I know it takes a lot of work to clear and renovate them between seasons, but all gardens do.

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      4. That is the difficulty. I knew that the site had never been used, and was infested with brambles, but was not aware that all the trash dumped on top of it pressed the brambles into the ground, causing them to develop more burls than I was expecting.

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      6. The worst of is it done, although I did not get as much space as I thought I would, since the junipers are all salvageable. Even if I did not use this space for a garden, I would need to come back later to clean up the brambles and groom the junipers. I will be using space across the driveway too, to compensate for the space that is occupied by the junipers. It will be easier to clear, and has a nice linear orientation that facilitates gardening. The exposure is good, and there is spigot at the corner of the building. I want the garden to be close for the crew. There are hundreds of acres out there, but this spot is the best.

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    1. There really should be more pictures of Rhody. I just can’t figure out how to make them relevant to a gardening blog. He is quite bored now, without his crew. He so misses sending them off to work in the morning, and tackling them when they return. I took a dirty glove from the antelope colored Chevrolet that is the barely visible fifth pickup from the front in the last picture, for Rhody to sleep with.

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    1. Wild cucumber is a slightly annoying but otherwise not too troublesome weed here in the West. I described it earlier for Chris Mousseau. You can see what I said about it above (or below, I don’t know where it fits in here). The main annoyance about it is that it so quickly overwhelms anything that it can reach. However, It is gratifying to remove, by breaking it off at the ground, and pulling the whole mess away at once. I do not bother to try to find the huge tuberous roots if they are not right at the surface. It seems that if they are not right at the surface, they are two or three feet down. There is not much in between. If I were not about to sow beans and (incidentally) cucumbers below the cyclone fence, I would leave the wild cucumber where it is. It provides nice greenery until the weather gets warm. On bare ground, it can inhibit some of the other weed growth. So, it is not as bad as I portray it to be.
      You are the second to suggest more pictures of Rhody. I might get some to replace my weekly rant fest on Wednesday, even if they are not horticulturally oriented.

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