A Crucible

Alchemical transformation by way of the spade

Crucible: 1: a pot in which metals or other substances are heated to a very high temperature or melted

2  formal + literary : a difficult test or challenge

3  formal + literary : a place or situation that forces people to change or make difficult decisions. - Brittanica

This is what the garden looked like on April 11.

This is how it looked when I arrived April 19.

I immediately went about covering the beds with sheep compost. This is a storm shelter, with twenty+ years of compacted poo, pee and hay turned to soil. Rain is coming and I want to cover the beds before it comes. This also might be a bit hot, as in too rich to plant in, but it will compost further on the beds over the next three weeks. Conditions are such I don’t plan on putting much in the ground until the first week of May at least.

After covering all the existing beds with 2-3 inches of compost, I dug another 200ft of garden beds.

I’ve been at the 80 several times, digging holes around the flags, filling the holes with pond mud. There was two feet of snow here April 10.

I dug and filled nineteen holes the first day, twenty-seven the second day. There is one more row, plus I have to make a plan for the shrub, vine and cane planting. I started filling the furthest holes first, pulling the wheelbarrow backwards, because knees-over-toes guy, until I couldn’t anymore and then pushing the cart the last few holes seemed that much easier.

Digging and filling the holes too was like a sacrament, I didn’t listen to music I just maintained a meditative steady pace, alternating left-right as I dug, as necessary, cutting the turf from the flag like spokes on a tire, lifting out each wedge to make a neat circle, a hole about 4 gallons in size. A jump start, I am betting, for the sapling trees. I would rather use sheep compost but logistically that is too complicated. I use what I have immediately available. I will test the soil to see about PH, in case I have to add anything. You can see the difference between the sand of the orchard and the soil of the wetland.

The start of a new pond. I will be hauling more soil from here to the orchard, particularly in the fall, making the pond bigger and deeper, assuming there is less water in the wetland in September. That wheelbarrow is sitting at one of the nearest holes. Hard work; some guys go to the gym, I prefer not going to a gym. Physically I am as strong as I have ever been, my sheer endurance is not what it was when I was 20, but I am a lot more efficient about how I use energy and I get a lot more done than I ever did at 20.

There was also a fence I removed. That took a greater part of a day, because the installers lined the garden with railroad ties, which they used galvanized staples to attach the wire to, about twice as many staples as they needed, some of which were buried in soil and grass roots, not easy to find. But it saved me about $500 in fencing, and I did a favor for a family friend, who is 82 and doesn’t garden anymore.

The infrastructure pile. The wire and posts, plus ash rough cut wood for raised planting boxes, pre-cut to be put together here. Also I spent a day dragging ironwood trunks out of the woods and across the field to the access road, the trees I cut last fall making trails. This is only about half of what I dragged out of the woods, and a fraction of what I cut. I plan to trellis the squash and melon, to maximize space.

The number of plants at the garden center has increased about four times the past week and is about to go exponential.

Meanwhile all these flowers, mostly violas, get to live inside for the next week, approximately. Big box economics are oblivious sometimes. There are at least nine carts like these, plants that should be on tables outside.

I have to give a shout out to my friend Grant Smith, of H2F man and A Radical American Mind. In this exchange he gave me some core strengthening links that I riffed off, making about a half hour workout (without rest) that has proved to be very helpful in all this digging and moving soil etc. I’ve lost about 25lbs since New Years and gained at least five in muscle mass, in part because of these exercises. I was up to about 150 pushups a day until I started garden and orchard work in earnest.

Soon I will be waking at 4am to be at work at 5am Fri-Mon, working at the garden center most of the day Fri-Sun, and then the garden and the orchard Mon-Thur, pretty much surise to sunset. The next two months will be like a crucible, which I fully intend on changing me, forging a new me, something like an alchemical transformation. I turn 50 on the 4th of July, this work is like a kind of capstone to the first fifty years of my life.

What awaits on the other side of 50? I don’t know, but I will be ready.