Don't Fence Me In!

We picked today to start putting the fence around the garden. Today seemed like the best day to work outside because the temperature combined with the humidity made it feel about 180 degrees. That is one of the special joys of living in Florida - humidity so high that you feel like you want to die after standing outside for 30 seconds. I learned a little something about humidity today from a weather website:

When you sweat, the only way you cool down is through evaporation of water from your skin. But if the air is holding too much water already due to high humidity, the sweat stays on your skin and you get little to no relief from the heat. A high Heat Index value shows a small chance of evaporative cooling from the skin. You even feel like it is hotter outside because you can't rid your skin of the excess water.

This explains why Aidan, who is recovering from being sick with a high fever, spent a lot of time leaning on things and begging to come back inside, and why Farmer B, who is recovering from a sinus infection, was feeling dizzy, and why we all came in after only 45 minutes complaining of seeing spots. It's all fun and games 'till you get heatstroke. Who starts a garden in July in Florida? No one with an ounce of common sense. That's for sure.

So back to the fence. We bought a green fencing that is more intense than chicken wire, but less intense than real chain link and seems suitable for keeping out boys, dogs and some wild animals (notice I said *some* - we have had bobcats in our yard and nothing stops them).

Farmer B used a sledge hammer to pound the stakes into the ground and then he and the boys wrapped the fencing around the stakes. As usual, Jace found a way to get involved and got stuck in a curly bit of fencing.

We didn't get the fence finished. We didn't figure out how to attach the fence to the stakes with these little metal clasps that come sans directions.
And we didn't figure out how to make a little gate so we can get in and out yet. Those are all in the plans for a slightly less humid day.

Trailer full o' dirt is empty!

We reached a gardening goal today: The trailer full o' dirt is now just a dirty trailer. We had a half hour or so after dinner and thought that it would be the perfect time to finish adding the organic topsoil to the garden. Besides - how dirty could the kids really get in half an hour? Did I mention that it rained and the dirt was very wet? Actually the boys did quite well raking and shuffling around in their wellies. We told them both not to sit in the dirt since it was wet and not to throw it or eat it - you know, the usual - and they actually listened. Then Jace went missing.

Jace, like most 2-year-olds, has a knack of getting into things and going missing if he is left alone for 5 to 10 seconds. When we called his name we heard a quiet little giggle - from under the trailer. His shorts are in the laundry room in a cold soak right now. Good times.

Extreme Hoeing

Conversation today:

Farmer B: Do we need a pitch fork?
Me: I don't know. What do you use one for?
Farmer B: I have no idea. Maybe on roots?
Me: I saw a picture of someone using them to get up potatoes.
Farmer B: Huh.
Long pause…
Farmer B: I think we need a hoe.
Me: We do? What do you do with a hoe?
Farmer B: Don't you make the rows and stuff with a hoe? - to put the plants in? sort of scoop up the dirt into hills?
Me: I have no idea. I've never gone hoeing.
(lots of giggling)
Farmer B (looking online): Here's a fiberglass hoe online. I want one of those.
Me: For extreme hoeing?
(giggle)

Oh yeah - we're totally cut out for this.

On a more serious note. I got some new gardening apparel today thanks to Farmer B. What a dedicated guy - on his way home from the doc's with a horrible sinus infection he still managed to stop and buy me some awesome new gardening gloves. It says on the packaging that they can also be used for ranching, but I'll stick to gardening. They look like batting gloves from baseball, so I'll be able to do some extreme hoeing in them while still keeping my girly hands oh-so-soft.

Mommy, can we turn off the TV and work in the garden?

Did you read the title of this entry? That's why we worked in the garden today. How do you respond when your 4-year-old actually says "Mommy, can we turn OFF the TV and work in the garden?" Today was not supposed to be a gardening day. We've had a setback in the household. Farmer B has come down with something that resembles the bubonic plague, but is probably a head cold. So the boys and I were trying to lay low and watch TV to let him recuperate. It got to be about 11 a.m. and the heat of the day was already a bit much for me…but you know what the boy said and you know what my response was because you don't say no to that.

I decided I'd prove I can pull my own weight so I grabbed the shovel and Aidan grabbed his little shovel and between us we loaded up three big wheelbarrows of dirt from the trailer and spread it on the garden. It was painfully hot though - the kind of hot that makes tourists pass out at theme parks. I even went out in my old lady hat that I bought for yardwork several months ago. That's when you know it's hot - when the old lady hat comes out. I put on some horrible pink shorts that used to be my mom's sweatpants because they already have a stain on them so I wouldn't feel guilty if they got dirty. (Way back in high school I decided I wanted pink sweat pant shorts. My mom showed me how to cut off the legs and hand-sew them into shorts. I have no idea why I still have these atrocious shorts with a paint stain on the leg, but they do come in handy from time to time.) I also put on a white shirt - to prove a point - and my dead-sexy knee-high tube socks (to prevent upper-calf wellie chafing) and my blue wellies. You thought that Farmer B had wardrobe issues. It was not a pretty sight.

So we went to work in the hot midday sun. The little one decided that it was too hot to get dirty and spent most of the time in the shade doing his own thing. The always-energetic-never-calms-down dog even hid under the trailer the entire time with just his furry butt sticking out panting like he was dying. We spent the entire time trying not to step on his tail - notice I said 'trying.' So it was a good day. One long hour later we came in when my 4-year-old said "Mommy can we stop gardening and watch TV?"

Wait! We got dirty

Well hold the presses! We did some more work on the garden after dinner too! Looks like the boys were energized after their long naps.

For the first time ever, we let the kids stay up late to watch fireworks. So that meant we had the fun job of trying to figure out how to entertain two very excited boys for about 3 hours while we waited for it to get dark. Next thing I knew we were all in the yard shoveling dirt. Jealous? I thought so. I don't know if you know this, but if you have a trailer full of dirt and two overly-excited small boys, very messy things happen, but they do stay entertained. The boys got so messy in fact that they had to have two baths tonight. We had to drain the bathwater and start again just so they got a bit cleaner. We got through about 2/3 of the trailer full o' dirt and the boys actually had a blast.

They're working really well in the garden and they might be getting something out of it. It's like a bad after-school special in our own backyard - The More You Know *ting*.

Farmer B was pleased that I offered to help a bit raking things back and forth and that my white shirt didn't hinder me. He went shirtless for the shoveling dirt escapade so that he didn't have to deal with any more outfit changes…for those of you keeping track.

We've talked about what happens once the trailer full o' dirt is emptied. I think we then work on the fence and then we take the soil for testing. I hope it passes the test! Apparently we put something on it called 6-6-6 or 8-8-8 depending on what the test results say. Farmer B is hoping for 6-6-6 so they can be evil vegetables. Our book says "Don't guess - test!" and that exclamation point scared us, so we're doing the soil testing.
And for the cutest pictures you've ever seen of my boys dirty faces, click on these links: Jace's hard-working dirty face and Aidan's hard-working dirty face

Tilling Complete

Today was an interesting day. I definitely learned a lot even if our garden doesn't look much different. Farmer B went outside with the boys to finish tilling the garden so that we could put down all of the topsoil that we bought. It turns out that there were a ton of large rooty dead stick things under the ground that made the job quite laborious, although the dog quite enjoyed all the stick chucking going on. The garden is now successfully tilled, but the topsoil is still in the trailer. Here are some of the things I learned today:

1. It can take four outfit changes before Farmer B feels that he's wearing appropriate apparel to garden AND be photographed. This caused me to laugh until I cried and suggest we call Tim Gunn for tomorrow's outfit suggestion. Tomorrow's ensemble? A knotted neck scarf and a ferosh pair of pin-striped capris and galoshes? Stay tuned.



2. The boys have never seen a garden worm before. We found one. It was very gross. I was sure it was somehow poisonous and could possibly try to burrow into your skin if you touched it. I don't know the difference between a nice happy garden worm and some parasitic poisonous beastie, so we poked at it with a stick and let it crawl away. I am yet to be one with nature.
3. A large german shepherd can till and loosen soil with his front paws quicker than any gas-powered lawn tiller.
4. If you wear a white fitted tshirt and your new denim short-shorts to garden, there is a good chance your husband will accuse you of not wanting to get dirty and not being serious about the garden. He's right about half of that - I am very serious about the garden. Note to self: Must do more wardrobe changes tomorrow.


5. In July in Florida it is apparently too hot to work outside after about 10 a.m. We got started at about 9:45 a.m. This explains why the topsoil is still in the trailer and two of the three boys are napping right now.

It's all Happening Now!

We took a big step today. We started the garden. And by "we" I mean my husband, of course.


We measured out a 10 x 20 area in the yard near the well for easier irrigation and because that's what the gardening book told us to do. Then the hubby (we'll call him Farmer B) took the oldest boy to buy 3 yards of organic topsoil and 3 foot high fencing for the perimeter. Living in FL we have this horrible sandy soil, so we'd heard that buying topsoil was the way to go - and we need all the help we can get. We have two young boys who like to dig and a dog with an obsession with dirt, so the fence is to keep them out - and any yard critters who want a midnight snack. We have armadillo issues in our yard and the periodic bunny, so we'll see if they can get through our fence.


Farmer B then got our new Honda Mini-Tiller and tilled the grass. I do wonder if this garden was just an excuse for him to have another gas-powered man tool. We went back and forth over whether we should remove the grass or till it into the soil. I figure that if (when) this is a huge failure we might be able to leave it alone and let grass re-grow there so leaving the grass seemed like a good idea - and it was less time consuming for Farmer B in the 90+ degree heat. It looked like less work to me from the air conditioned comfort of our living room. We have no idea if we have too much topsoil - or what stops it washing away once we dump that trailer-load of dirt on the garden and our summer monsoon-like rains hit that thing. Maybe we'll look into 2 x 4's or railroad ties?



So today was a good start. We have no idea what to do next.