Sunday, April 18, 2010

A mountain of *gold* for the taking

Less than ideal weather may have spoiled plans to attend a wild asparagus festival near Verona today, but I feel more sorry for those stranded, inconvenienced and worn out due to the disruption of air travel here in Europe. The latest I've heard is that KLM wanted to start getting their planes in the air. Who wants to be among the first guinea pigs? Nature can be such a tempestuous beast!

So it seems almost by grace that we had beautiful sunshine on Saturday morning because we were able to haul the 35 (out of an estimated 70) 5-gallon buckets of dirt from garden nursery to home. That meant only 3 trips down into town then back up the mountain. My husband did all of the back-breaking work of course, but it is so nice to have actual soil instead of the heavy clay. Total cost: 10€ - dirt cheap (literally!). We were done just before 12, which left the afternoon free to let go of another 10€ and pick up an apricot tree. What's next? Building a frame to allow us to unfurl hail nets to cover the entire garden. I've seen some local gardeners already spreading out theirs. The tricky thing is figuring out the specs to protect a steep slope instead of a flat plain.

6 comments:

K and S said...

that is a LOT of dirt! I feel bad for those stuck in Europe also...better safe than sorry, I say!

Rowena said...

A good thing we left the dogs at home because I know that the both of them would be having at it as soon as they saw MotH digging in the dirt!

Fern Driscoll said...

Lovely, soil. Now you need just a little 'black gold' (manure!) for it to be perfect. The captain is digging a new orto for us this year, so has sympathy for MotH and his hauling duties. Feh! Good luck with the nets - should be the same basic geometry as flat, no?

Rowena said...

Fern - ha! We are *2* steps ahead of you! Got manure and also compost from the bin...a little of worm action in there! As for the nets - well, unless basic geometry includes 4 fruit trees of varying heights on various points of the slope, then perhaps it would simply amount to unfurling the masts and tying them down. We'd really like to have more than a handful of unblemished fruit this year!

Fern Driscoll said...

Yeah, I guess the trees complicate things considerably. But based on previous evidence in your blog I have to imagine MotH will come up with an ingenious solution, or you will, or together you will. Hope you get more of your crops than the hail and the critters this year...

Gail - Fort Rock Glimpses said...

Looks like a mountain of black gold to me! How exciting. We are hoping to get several pickup loads of manure from a friend this year. They own cattle and have mountains of manure in varying degrees of breaking down. We will of course opt for the really old stuff for our gardens and greenhouses. Can't wait to see what you do with it.