Yes, I would like to think that Spring is here. I’ve seen Spring flowering bulbs sprouting. If you want to read more about sprouting bulbs then click here. It’s always a mystery of nature to me that those bulbs know just when to start growing in the Spring time. I’ve seen flocks of robins hanging out in trees. I guess they are waiting for the ground to thaw out so they can start the harvesting of worms. There’s not much worm food with the ground mostly still frozen and patches of snow lingering in shaded areas. We here are hopeful that the worst of Winter is over and the next three 60 degree days will help Spring to pop. There’s always that chance that Winter will return but at this time of the year we know it won’t last long.
Well, yeah, I can’t actually do any gardening just yet but working around the garden with other projects can be done. This is a natural spring at Terra Nova Gardens. I’ve wanted to develop it into a irrigation system but just never had the time to pursue it. I’m really going to make an effort to get stage one finished this year. This is a basic support structure for the platform that will be over the spring. There are two bridge supports and two railroad ties. This just a rough lay out of the design. All these supports will be leveled up and two additional 2 X 12s set in joist hangers will be spaced evenly between the bridge supports. The ground is still pretty frozen but I suspect after a couple of predicted 60 degree days the ground will be soft enough to start leveling up the supports.
This is rough idea of what it will look like when the platform is on the supports. The pipe you see is a 6-inch pipe that a neighborhood friend helped me bury about 6 feet below the spring water table. It fills up with about 35 gallons of water that can be pumped out before a time of recovery is needed. The Spring platform will be in two sections. This is the first section. A hole will be cut through this section for the stand pipe to fit through. As you can see the platform is made from remodeled heavy duty oak pallets. Another section this same size will be placed behind this section making the total size of the platform about 6 feet wide and approximately 8 feet deep. When the platform is in place a structure will be built around the buried pipe to support a hand pump to bring the water up out of the pipe. I’m hoping to be able to get this all done some time this year. As I said this is only stage one of Spring development. Stage 2 and 3 are way more complicated and will require way more time. I’m hoping to get all the garden structure building done before I’m too old to do it. Then in my old age I can just enjoy gardening. Yeah, right.
Have a great Spring day and I’ll be giving more updates as they come.
