Another use for an old barn
Posted by Rich on 11 Apr 2010 at 12:34 pm | Tagged as: Gardening, General, The Organic Life
Spring….how nice. And time to go find the farm again.
I have stopped by about once a month over the winter. The snow is gone and the ground is dry. The crib appears to have stayed dry, and the shed did far better then expected. I still have got to do something about the bottom of those shed doors. There seems to be quite a bit of rabbit poo in there. Luckily, a little bit more of the barn seems to have settled lower again. And of course, a few branches have been shed from the trees.
A few days ago, I had to get something out of storage in the corn crib. While I was there, I mounted the end joist for the platform on the staircase, and cut out the 2nd stringer. It was too cool to see the first pair of them line up after waiting all winter. They were all traced from the same pattern of course, but this was the first 3D vision of them.
Yesterday, in the middle of a bike ride with the Cyclists of Greene (COG) a few of us made it as far South as our property from town. My plan was to stop there and get a recent wood delivery placed inside. While I was there I started a new project, the potato planter.
I de-nailed a stack of old board that used to line the galley under the corn crib and cut them into 4′ lengths. I also used a couple of the old bin-wall studs (4×6′s) to make 3′ tall corner posts. The plan/experiment this year is to plant potatoes inside this frame. As the plant grows each week you nearly bury it again, adding more side boards as needed. After a summer of this, you should have a large cube, full of potatoes. All the lower leaves and branches are supposed to turn into roots and give layers and layers of potatoes in a small area. All the hardware for the first few layers is ready.
The tractor has undergone a minor overhaul. I’ll be hooking up the mower deck tonight, followed by a quick test – why not. Then I need to get the truck from the farm, load the tractor in it, then bring it all back down to the farm. We need some dirt tilled so that we can plant these potatoes and a bunch of onion sets soon.
I haven’t done that method of potatoe planting but a friend of mind did…it works and is pretty neat to see it in action, also a nice way to keep them till fall.