The Modern Victory Garden

The big “to do” for this weekend was to get the remainder of the stumps and roots removed from the garden expansion site area.   We have been working on this project since late last fall – removing trees, bushes, large ferns, and clearing the debris away.    I was down to one large tree stump, 2 large fern roots, and 3 smaller rhodie tree stumps that were standing between me and the next phase of this project – building the boxed beds and double digging them.     

I am able to tackle the fern roots and some of the smaller rhodie tree stumps by myself.   But there were two stumps remaining that required some additional horsepower to get out.   My husband was kind enough to help me today and brought out the chainsaw to do the heaviest of removal work remaining.   However, before he joined me in the garden this morning, I tackled the removal of a large stump next to one of my existing garden beds.   I wanted to remove it because this bed should be 4 feet longer to maximize the available space.   I had kept it shorter to avoid dealing with the stump originally - but now I want to correct the situation.    Here are some pics showing the stump, the removal process, and the area once raked back smooth and completed.   It’s now ready for the bed to be lengthened!

Once that first stump was removed, my husband joined me and we tackled the large blue spruce tree stump.   This one was quite large and had large radiating roots that snaked their way through most of the new garden site area.  

We  dug out the area to make room for the chainsaw blade and then set to work cutting it up and prying the pieces and long roots out. 

Once the big stump and roots were out, I tackled the remaining stumps and fern roots.   I have whined about the fern roots several times before – they are an absolute bear to remove.   Because they are so difficult, I have  been procrastinating on removing these last two.   But today I got them done.   Just to show you how monstrous these are… here’s a picture of the first one I pulled out today.   It is turned over so that the roots are on top.  

Whew!  That was a lot of work!   I was out there working from 10 am until about 3 pm – taking a half hour break for lunch mid way.  But look at the site now.   It is basically ready now for the construction of beds.   

In addition to the garden expansion site work, I also reseeded a few cells of broccoli this morning because I did not have 100% germination on the seeds I planted last weekend.   I also gave the spinach bed and corn salad a drench of fish emulsion tea.   After I was through with the heavy work for the day, I picked a large colander full of mixed spring greens to fix a nice salad for dinner.   Young lettuce, baby swiss chard leaves, baby spinach leaves, and some corn salad made up the mix.   The only thing on my “to do” list that I did not get to – was getting the seed potatoes out of storage to begin encouraging them to grow eyes.   This is something I can do any time over the next two weeks – so it can wait for another day when I have a little more energy left.   

Hope you were able to also get out into the garden and do some spring prep work.