The Goodness of Spring and a Corduroy Road Begins

I've always been passionate about the outdoors but I'm not really quite sure why I've become so enchanted with the passing of time this spring. I've truly been enjoying the transition of our dormant landscape to one that is awake and alive.

The leaves on our trees are changing from the bright neon green of newness to that darker shade that means serious photosynthesis is going on. The apple trees I trudged through the snow to so diligently prune responded marvelously with full crowns of wonderfully fragrant blossoms. I could hear the hum of many thousands of bees as they too enjoyed the fruit (pun intended) of my labors. The 3 apple trees and 4 walnut trees I purchased and transplanted have leafed out; the two hearty pecans weren't so hearty. The weather changed overnight and the days warmed into the upper 60's even low 70's. The blackfly swarms are gone but a few of the buggers persist to occasionally fly into my mouth, nose or eye. They have been replaced by mosquitos which, at least, respond some to liberally applied bug spray. The honeysuckle is almost in full bloom and I am anxiously awaiting my last favorite spring smell; the week of wild rose bloom which fills the air with its amazing fragrance.

At home, the garden is mostly in. I couldn't wait until after the full moon to plant which is what most folks around here swear by. As usual, I have more to plant in an already full garden. This is the first year since we moved over three years ago where I feel I am finally "gardening".

Over the winter, I built a small coldframe/greenhouse out of old storm windows someone had left by the side of the road. This was assembled outside in the garden just after the ground thawed. It's designed to be taken apart and moved so that it can be reincarnated as (perhaps) part of a larger structure (read: chicken coop) at a later time.

My garden compost pile took two years to get going and I have compost to use for the first time this year. I added a second bin this spring. The many pickup truck loads of horse barn gleanings that I used to mulch between my rows of plants in the last two years has successfully improved the body of most of my soil (it was pretty sandy when I started).

I have been faithfully organic with my garden believing it to be the only way to grow your own. Ever the scientist, I've decided to try seeding between my rows with a low-growing crimson clover to suppress weeds and provide a green manure crop during the garden season. I've also added greensand (potassium and other minerals) and Calphos (calcium and phosphorus) when I transplant and will also side dress with these as my plants bloom. After many (many) years of experimenting with various incarnations of drip irrigation, I now swear by T-tape as the most cost effective way of watering row crops when the soils dry. With increasing food prices, my goal this year is to put by as many of our veggies as I can come harvest time.

On our 55 acres, I've been continuing to clear the windfall of dead trees around our extended yard area. The dead wood is cut into 16-36" lengths and moved, with my big orange wheelbarrow (aka the tractor), to low places in the woods where I can stack the wood to decay. I decided I needed a break from the tedium of this chore and went to work on rebuilding a corduroy section of access trail which goes through a perpetually wet area.

My first attempt at "fixing" this section of trail two years ago was a disaster and I'm fixing the mess I made back then. I had moved the soil layer out of the road bed into piles alongside the trail. I scraped down to clay thinking the road would be solid underneath (wrong!). They wet clay gets real soft and squishy after being driven through by lugged tractor tires. This would be fun to play in if I were a kid or weren't trying to make something useful out of it.

I'm removing the piles of scraped topsoil from beside the trail, taking it out to our back field bucket by bucket and spreading it out. I'm adding this good rich soil to an otherwise ledge-y and uneven area. It'll get raked and seeded with a grass/clover mix.

The extensive back-and-forth, heavy tractor traffic, from wet trail to field, has packed down the soil so much in some places that I've had to find small rock to fill hollows that have become dangerous to drive over with a full bucket (read: tip over). The small rock comes from being picked out of the fresh damp topsoil that I have spread over the field. Hand raking levels the newly placed soil to get it ready for seed and finds me my rocks. Yup. It's labor intensive but it's also pretty cool the way all these tasks can be connected to create more than a "whole" if you kind of follow me.

On my soon-to-be corduroy roadbed, I've removed old wood of varying lengths and states of decay from a previous attempt at corduroy, flattened out a section as much as I could in the muck and mire and trenched the uphill side of the road to intercept some of the surface water that is ultimately the issue.

I've started placing 10' long balsam fir poles in the trail bed and also started to place gravel to cover the poles. I've put so many down that I 'm going to have to start driving on top of them to gain access to the other side (to remove more soil, etc.). The gravel gets raked out to get it between the poles then driven over to set everything. I'll add another layer of gravel as things settle in and to keep the poles from getting chewed up by the tractor tires.

I'm on to another round of tree harvesting as I've used up my stockpile of poles. All the smaller diameter trees have been removed and now I'm on to the larger (and heavier) ones. This is probably good as the next area to corduroy is also the muckiest.