Just a short post this time to update the progress at Terra Nova Gardens. We are in a rain cycle here. There was a torrential down pour this afternoon with the promise of more to come during the night time hours. My main tank for gravity feed watering is full. One rain put 300 gallons of water in the tank. I suspect that the tank has a leak though because I lost about an inch a day without watering from the last rain. We will see how much loss comes with a full tank.
My cousin gave me a water pump for a fountain so now that I have enough water in the tank, the pump can be set up and circulate the water to keep the algae down.  If I can plug the leak and keep the tank full the next step will be to catch some fish and put them in the tank. Then the dangling bug zapper will provide some of the diet for the fish.
The progress at Terra Nova has halted for a spell with the rain. It was a great week of work.
Here’s what it looks like now. The rustic fence is finished for this year and the critter proof area fence posts have been set in the ground. They are spaced eight feet apart with a 2X4 treated top rail. I found that landscaping timbers made for the perfect fence posts. They are treated, they are eight foot long, and best of all they are only $2 compared to much more for a regular eight foot post. The fabric for the fence is good old chicken wire. It’s 48 inches high but has quite a space under certain sections of the fence due to the uneven ground. Thirty feet of fencing will be cut in two foot strips and used to cover these sections that need to be covered. That should bring the fence even with the ground.Â
Remember the tree that was cut earlier this year? I’ve decided to set the split wood chunks in a shallow trench around the bottom of the fence with staples holding the fence to the wood chunks from the inside of the fence. If that don’t discourage the digging critters then I’ll have to go to plan “B”. What is plan “B”? Ah, I don’t know yet.
Here’s a little better view of the chicken wire critter proof fence. Steel posts between the wooden post give the fence a little more sturdiness. The posts were donated to the garden by a neighbor across the street. He also gave me the mother of all post drivers, that he had made, to pound them into the ground. The top plate looked like it was cut from inch thick boiler plate steel. The handles were steel rod about an inch and a half thick and the tube for the post to fit into was at least a half inch thick. The whole thing probably weighed at least 40 to 50 pounds. When the post was hammered with this driver it would sink into the ground about six to eight inches. Never did I have to whack the post more than a couple times. It was a real man handler. It made short work of pounding in the posts that’s for sure. As you can see the day lilies are doing quite well. I’ve found that it’s not as easy to transplant them as I thought. I see you smiling. Old Bobcat Larry gave me a hand and carved out a road so I can park my truck off the road. The weeds are starting to perk up and will probably really take off after all the weekend rain.
After the fence fabric was installed and I was resting admiring my work, the wild turkeys came over to the property and starting checking out the fence line. I told them that this was my part of the garden and that outside the fence was their part of the garden and sweet corn would be planted in their part of the garden. They weren’t too sure what to think about that. Old Tom was strutting his stuff with tail fanned out but the ladies just weren’t interested. Neighbors have told me that hatching season is in May so there just may be a bunch of little gobblers running around soon.
It’s going to be back to work again this next week. The weather is kicking up again this weekend. I hope and pray that everyone avoided the bad stuff and only got the rain that brings gardens to life.
Have a great week in the garden.
