Tomatoes in the Ground

Well my last blog was about a tiller repair that has been partly successful. I will continue there at a latter time. It seems I still have an oil leak which will require another tear down and reassembly with a new seal.

Children of the Corn (garden in this case)

As for the garden proper.... The leaves have been tilled in with the help of friends and the two tillers that I have. I took two soil samples to ULM and had them analyzed. I then talked to an old friend and TP Outdoors inquiring about success with tomatoes. He showed me pictures of his more than 600 lbs of tomatoes from 75 plants last year. I offered to pay for the secret and received it at no charge. I was instructed to go to the local LSU Ag Center and take my soil sample. I said surely it is not that easy but I was assured it is. At the Ag Center I was given a recipe of 1.5 lbs of  8-8-8 per 50 foot row. This was to be pre-dressing for each row.(sprinkled along the top then mixed in to the first 4 inches.) After sprinkling this amount out I realized that I did not use anywhere the amount of fertilizer I needed to last year.







So with rain predicted for Saturday night and some Sunday I made a mad dash to get some rows made and the tomatoes and zucchini I already had started into the ground. It only took 3 different trips to the garden, one with Dixon and two without. After the last trip I had 28 tomatoes (4 beef steaks, 4 Marion Heirloom (HL), 8 Early Girls, 6 Arkansas Travelers (HL), 6 Cherokee Purple (HL)) in the ground and 4 zucchinis.''

I was happy with the way the rows ended up working. After digging holes with the newly replace handled post hole diggers the tomatoes each ended up in their own 10 inch diameter hole which held water nicely and seemed to direct this water down to the plant. I plan on filling theses in and mulching the plants with a layer of news paper and leaf mulch. Havent yet decided if each plant will get a drip irrigation spout.

Zucchini

After having lots of mold on squash flowers last year I decided to make the squash row extra wide to allow for more air circulation.

At the house I have another 20 tomatoes started at the house. Some yellow squash, more zucchinis, peppers and water melons. I'll have to keep everyone posted on when those go in the ground. 

Soil Block Maker

Well I am not actually making a true post. I found this blog today while waiting out a headache. I have Tomatoes up and growing under my light and should have an official post about it this weekend. In the mean time check out this http://www.agrowingtradition.com/

Merry Tiller or Not So Merry Tiller Breakdown Part 1

A long long time ago (circa 1994) I purchased a used tiller from Ram Rent All.  At the time my lawn service did a decent number of "projects." Some of these required a tiller and at $50 per rental I decided that I should invest in one. After checking the classifieds and the local retailers I asked Jay Rivers at the rental place if he had any for sale. In one fluid motion he snapped up a ratty spiral note book flipped through and informed me I could purchase the tiller I'd been renting for the small sum of $225. It was a good deal - a commercial machine for the price of a homeowner model.

Now flash forward 17 years. This tiller has been consistently cranking and running, barring a couple of carburetor cleanings and a new spark plug or two. Friday afternoon while tilling in leaves in the back yard garden it stopped. Not the trusty Kawasaki engine, which was new on the machine when purchased, but something in there that was keeping the tines from turning. So I pulled the thing out of the garden and thought about what I needed. After a quick cleaning with the water hose and a fresh Diet Coke I managed to roll it around to the garage where the real mechanical repairs take place.

This was the first picture I could find.

In my mind there were several possibilities which could have caused this break down. Question one was do I really want to take this thing apart? (count the holes in the picture!) Question 2 what all is inside there?(meaning the transmission)

This was the second.

The disassemble did not take place until nap time on Saturday. Did I mention that Katherine was gone to a Quiz Bowl Tournament and I'd been entertaining the kids all day?  Once they were both sound asleep or at least the newer one was, I took to the process.

One bolt left to remove so that the tines and the transmission are free and separate from the motor.

After gloving up, I had to remove the handles, followed by the cast metal piece that holds the wheels and the draw bar. This took about 20 min and I was left with the picture below.






When the last bolt was out, I slid the transmission from between the two pieces of the frame and realized that I was still faced with removing the tines.

Checked on the kids at this point and finally gave into Dixon's plea that he was not ever going to go to sleep and should be allowed to go out and play.

Now I had an assistant (mainly to go in and listen for William crying) who was amazed that with a 2 foot cheater pipe his father could snap metal bolts off. We managed to break the heads or nuts off of 3 ends of the two bolts. They were still stuck in there so I doused them with some Blaster 16-PB Penetrating Catalyst - 11 oz. spray and waited a while. In the process of removing the remaining pieces of the bolts, a hole was drilled which produced smoke, this led to an explanation of why I used motor oil to cool it and was followed with lecture on viscosity, heat, and metal melting temperatures. One day my kid will rock the science fair.

After 2 hours, Katherine returning from her Quiz Bowl outing, lots of hammering, some cursing, and a significant amount of heating from a propane torch the two remaining pieces were removed and the tines slid off the shaft.


Now we were ready to see what was the true problem with the transmission.

I did not count how many bolts held the transmission together at the time of dis-assembly,  but if the diagram is correct there are 32.

With 4 flat tipped screw drivers and a door removal tool, I managed to crack open the case and find my problem inside. I was hoping that the weld that held the gear to the shaft had given out so I could just re-weld and re-assemble but instead I found that the smaller of the two chains had indeed broken.

Small chain is pulled out and at the bottom of the picture

This being a repair which would require parts, I cleaned up the stuff and manged to stack everything (all 32 nuts and bolts) in the garage until sometime next week when a chain can be obtained and the machine reassembled. The true question is can Michael put Humpty Dumpty back to gather again at that point.

Part 2 of the Great Leaf Round-Up

So after 3 trailer loads of leaves at approximately 300 cu ft per load we have a huge pile of leaves at the garden which total to about 900 cu ft. If you are allergic to math please skip over the next section in red.

• Now if the garden is 50' x 50' then we can figure on 2500 sq ft. Our leaves in the cubic form are approximately 5' x 10' x 12' or 50 sq ft 144 inches high. Taking the 50 sq ft times 144 we get 7200 sq ft of mulch 1 inch thick then divide that by 2500 and we end up with 2.88 inches of mulch over the whole garden.

With enough leaves to cover the whole garden 2.88 inches deep, I decided it was time to do some tilling and mix some of these in. Off to the garden I headed with my trusty helper who likes dirt, mud, and big piles of leaves. The soil was a little wet but as long as we were tilling in leaves there were no real problems. Dixon had a large time helping me spread out the contents of the bags and was a great help answering the question can a 4 year old could indeed climb a pile of bags that large!!! 





In the process of dumping and spreading out the leaves I managed to collect  28  70 gallon bags that just so happen to cost $0.65 cents each. Once again with the math.

•  If each bag is $0.65 each times 28 that comes to exactly $18.20 plus tax that is a grand total of  $19.84 that technically I made. 

Now you ask how can I make money by collecting leaf bags? (My wife will probably point out how I shouldn't have used a ? there or how I correctly did) Thus far in my blog I have not gotten in to how while not teaching Algebra, Physical Science, and ACT Prep at Neville High School I have a lawn service.(Here the English teaching wife did want me to note that when at the school I teach but while not at the school I cut grass. Sorry for any misunderstandings)  This would be how I knew that these bags were $0.65 each and also why I see this as a monetary gain for me.

Table Top Garden ---- Bean Sprouts

This year Santa brought Dixon some great stuff. My favorite was the Kitchen Crop Sprouter from Amazon.

My wife as usual was hesitant/unsure about the idea of eating sprouts.  So far we have grown 3 crops of sprouts. The first was alfalfa.

The alfalfa sprouts tasted like lettuce and were wonderful on sandwiches. I later read in a Victory Garden Book that 1/2 cup of  alfalfa sprouts has the same vitamin C as 6 cups of Orange Juice.

The second crop of sprouts were from radish seeds. I should have thought a little more before grabbing the first pinch of these and popping them into my mouth.

Come to find out radish sprouts are quite spicy!!!!! Yeah spicy causing tears in the eyes kinda like when ya get a nice amount of horseradish. Katherine did manage to find that if put on toast with cheese (laughing cow) or something similar the spicy ness is much more pleasant.

The third crop was planted by Dixon even though he has not admitted to liking any of them. They still need a couple more days but currently look like this.

The fuzzy stuff is not mold but small hairlike roots that form on some of the seeds. After this picture was taken Katherine passed by and stole some..... so I guess she is OK with the sprout growing project.

Part 1 of the Great Leaf Round-Up

Well I must say that Kat seems to be having too much fun with her blog http://louisianapickle.blogspot.com/ so as Dixon would say "I was jealous." It is funny that the majority of the internet based activities that she currently participates in, I bullied her into starting. Hopefully I can keep everyone up to date on the happenings at the garden and other various projects that get started around here.

Currently "The Big Garden" is quite dormant. There are 2 rows of produce growing made up of brussels sprouts, cabbage, and rutabaga. I managed to clean up the lot over the Christmas break and am starting to collect leaves to till in to prepare for the spring growing. The whole family rode on the last leaf collection. While doing some math in the car Kat and I determined the current total is about 600 cubic feet of leaf trash. My goal is 1800 cu. ft which will give about 6 inches of leaf debris over the whole garden. This will then be tilled under and aid in the soil quality. 

A trip to the AG expo on Friday proved eventful when after chatting with my neighbor down the street it was revealed that he had a manure source through a co-worker. That should result in a post later on. Please come back and visit and feel free to follow me and this blog. We are going to try to have a good time.