New World Datsuns...

Driven - I can get access to horse and/or cow manure, maybe that would help loosing the ground. hmmmm

wayno- yes, ground has never been tilled before aka virgin ground.

I've noticed a few gardens starting up here, might have to stop and ask 1 what they recommend.

Ni10 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 6:35 am Since the topic of garden has come up. I've got rich clay soil and the ground is a virgin for a garden, what would you guys suggest to help loosing the soil up. Sand ? compost from the recycler's ? Saw dust ?

For what it’s worth , I don’t know much about gardening or growing. I do know however...that my property contains a lot of clay .

As far as vegetables berries growing area was concerned...I got it wet , jack hammered it , rotor-tilled it , dug it out and headed straight to the local nursery for new dirt/soil/steroids to Replace what waS dug out....then seed/plant the vegetables/berries. Still use some of the clay to mix in obviously.

Our citrus trees , hybrid fruit treesS , Etc got the recommended general rule of thumb depth/width when the holes were dug out. One was an absolute bitch trying to dig through clay... I’m glad I dug that particular hole Almost 1ft deeper and wider than recommended.

The drip line emitters are adjusted as best as I can. Somehow most everything survives.....lol

Strawberries and grapes are in a different category.

I seen something today I have never seen before, my bush cherry has flowers, it has been likely 4 years since I planted it, I might have a few cherries this year, I like cherries, I will have to do something to keep the birds from getting them.







I was told when I bought it that it would have fruit in 2 or 3 years, but I really have not done much to the plant other than to plant it and kill the weeds around it.

I did work on the garden today, I put my tomato planters in position and started on the watering system, it appears I will have 8 out of the 10 rows on automatic watering, 2 rows will be on a timer that I have to turn on myself, I believe them 2 rows will be corn and broccoli, I have not decided for sure yet, for me it's all about weeds, I am trying to stop the weeds from growing so fast.

I did some stuff today, first I went and got 2 more gallons of bleach for a customers house, I then went to Home Depot and bought a toilet, some broccoli, a Watermelon plant, and some corn seeds, then I stopped at 2 places before finding the oil filter I need, then I changed the oil/filter and oil on the work truck and then drove it across town to look at a deck, it was smoking pretty bad in the driveway, but by the time I got to the house with the deck it no longer smoked, the coolant is all burnt out of the exhaust system.
After looking at the deck that was more or less a rubber mat on a deck(made that way on purpose), I told them I was scared to touch it with a pressure washer, but by the time I got there she had decided to do it herself anyway, so I went to her dads house and re-scheduled his house washing(reason I needed the bleach), then I went to a nursery out in the boonies and it was open, so i bought my 4 tomato plants and some lettuce plants.
I came home and moved all the trucks around so the work truck was connected to the trailer again, and then I started on the garden.
I have 3 rows of strawberries and my tomatoes being watered automatically now, they are not on right now but I did test every row and got them watering evenly, tomorrow I will get the other 4 rows piped(near my shed) and the other 2 rows planted by the cement wall and get the watering system working there.

You look ready.

The thing is that most everything I have was built over the last few years so I only have to modify a few things instead of making it from scratch/starting over when I change things like I am doing this year, the other 4 rows I am going to use my automatic watering device that waters 4 sections one at a time one right after the other, the only option is to delete sections, I found it easier to just put a cap on the sections you don't want to water instead of going into the matrix and possibly messing something up, I am hoping I can have different run times per section, but I have doubts.
Tomorrow I will work on the garden most the day, I should get most everything done/planted.

I spent the whole day on that garden and I made an effort to put it all together without having to buy anything, I succeeded and everything works watering the garden wise, I have everything planted except the Watermelon plants and the corn but them areas do have the watering set up already.
I dug ditches for the Broccoli and where the corn is going to be, I made raised planters of some type for the tomatoes, lettuce, and Watermelon, everything except the 2 rows of Strawberries are in some kind of ditch or planter to control where the water goes to slow down the weeds.
On the right are the Blueberries, the planters in row 2 have lettuce(the bottoms of the containers were cut off), the top part is to hold the water, the next two rows are the new ditches of Strawberries.


The 2 fat rows of Strawberries, I am going to figure out something to keep the water in the Strawberries.


The new row of Strawberries in a ditch, and my Tomato planters, the planters have fresh soil in them so i am hoping no weeds.


The ditch with the Broccoli on the right and the ditch where the Corn is going to go on the left.


Here is where the Watermelon plants are going to be.


View from the back.


View from the front.


I need more fresh soil for the watermelon plants, it's the only thing I need to finish planting.

I stopped at Home depot near Padden and Andreson Rd and the parking lot was full and there was a line to get in a half hour long, so i went home, got in the 521 kingcab and went to the store and got another gallon of bleach, then I went to the Home Depot there and it only had a 3 or 4 minute line, I bought the soil I needed and drove home, it took me less time to drive home and then to the other Home depot than it would have been to stand in that line, also for the last 2 days there has been a very long line to enter the dump(transfer station), yesterday it was over a quarter mile long down 503(the road to Battleground) and half as long the other way, the reason I went that way home from my job was that it froze last night and I lost my Sungold tomato plants, the others were fine, but they are my favorite so I went and bought 2 more plants.
Here is what I am going to do from now on when I go to bed if they are forecasting anything in the 30s.





And when I go to bed I will do this.



This is what I did when I got home, I widened the ditch for the corn and planted them in this row.



Then I made this ditch in the garden near the posts for watering and planted corn there also, if I don't like it or too many weeds grow I will just till it under, I know it is not the best way to plant corn but it is all I could think of to use up the seeds, the water is put in the ditch near the shed and it makes it to the other end of the ditch in less than a minute.



I also planted the Watermelon plants.

Great job

So I have been thinking about how I was going to water this year, I decided I didn't want to do it manually with a timer anymore, I wanted it to water automatically(even the grass in front), so yesterday I bought a bunch of automatic water timers, I don't even remember how many I bought, but 6 of them arrived today, 3 were brand new, and 3 were used, all the new ones worked properly when I installed the batteries, but the used ones(same brand, different type), well one worked properly, one decided to work after fiddling with it a while(dependable???), the last one turns and turns without stopping, not sure if that one is ever going to work properly, I will take it apart and see if I can fix it, not sure if I should have bought used timers from that guy or any other guy even though he was 100 percent positive feedback, everyone was 100 percent feed back that I bought from on ebay.

I worked today, pressure washed 2 retaining walls(concrete blocks) at someones house and the driveway/sidewalks, you know what happens when you pressure wash vertical walls with a bunch of moss on them, it comes right back at you and get you dirty from your toes to the top of your head, but it is work I can do and it doesn't take all day, I have this need to eat food, so I work.

I made this watering ring today out of a old soaker hose that sprung a leak and parts I had in buckets, I am considering making more with plastic tees instead of garden hose tees, I will think about it some more, it probably would work better than what I have done with the Tomatoes and Lettuce, but this would require buying stuff, but I bought the timers and expect to get years of use out of them, well the same thing applies to these watering rings, years of use.

Pictures of timers ?

The 3 timers on the left are what I prefer(2 AA batteries), I have had only one that has stopped working in all the years I have owned that type, the 2 on the right were used when I bought them and only 1 worked properly, but I got a 2nd one working, the 3rd one will not work properly, they use 2 AAA batteries, they have a cover which is nice but I would rather they work, they are used though.




They are single hose type timers, but I own a Orbit 4 hose type timer, until a couple years ago I could never get the thing to work properly, while searching online about it I figured out that unit runs all 4 circuits one right after the other automatically, they left that fact out in the directions, I could never figure out how to get more than one circuit to work, well after I got them all working with limited options I figured out that when I want one or more circuits to stop working, it was easier just to remove the hose and put a cap on that outlet rather than going into the computer workings and telling it to stop circuit number 4 from watering, and if I want circuit number 2 to stop I have to switch hoses around, it's too complicated of a unit for me, too this day I have to get the directions out to do anything with that unit.

Here is a photo of that unit.

I went to Home Depot today and left with very little shaking my head all the way to my truck, they wanted $12.something for a female repair end for a garden hose, and it was a cheap type, they didn't even have a "Y" without valves on it cheap or expensive, nor did they have a plastic 1/2" tee for a reasonable price, I think they wanted $6. something, I told the guy that asked me if I needed help that I was not paying them prices and I walked away, I bought $10.00 worth of stuff(4 things) and then went to Parkrose Hardware and bought 6 tees at $1.79 each, 6 female repair ends for $3.79 each for a total of $33.48 plus tax, they were way cheaper than Home Depot.

I need ten 1/2" PVC pipe to male garden hose threads, one more Female end repair, and five 1/2" tees and I will have everything I need, pickings for garden hose stuff is starting to get lean around here, I made 4 female ends and I only need the one more.

Here is what I have so far, all the rings are small enough to fit into a 5 gallon bucket.

I forgot, I added a new tool today, a Milwaukee 2553-20 1/4" impact driver, I figure I will use this more because it is smaller than my Dewalt impact drivers and I don't want all my M12 batteries to go bad because I don't use them.


It already has a place in the garage along with the other tools.


It has 4 different settings, the weird symbol on the left is it comes on softly and transitions to full strength when trigger is fully pulled in, #1 is soft, #2 is medium, and #3 is full strength, it is variable speed also.


I do not know how strong it is yet, being my Dewalt is 18V I expect it is stronger, but I will not know until I use it a while, it was not that expensive but it was just the tool, no battery and no charger, I only have one extra/lose battery now that I suspect will be the charger until cycled into use while the other battery gets charged.

I also received 3 more water timers(all new), I expect this will be the last of them I receive, I like this type of timer because it is simple to use, how often, how long, that is it, this type also uses AAA batteries, I think I have all that I need now with a couple back up units.


I am hoping I have lots of goodies to munch on this spring/summer/fall, keep me energized to pull weeds.

Not sure if you know or not but the symbol is supposed to be a drill bit. Full speed for drilling holes.

My soaker rings didn't work to well, when I got home today a third of them had fallen apart, where I pushed them on the tees had split and where the hose connected to the tee they split also, kinda a bummer.
So I went to the hardware store and bought everything else I needed and then I bought 30 feet of half inch clear tubing and made them again, then I drilled 4 small holes in the bottom side of the ring.


I have not replaced this one yet, it has clamps of one kind or another on most the connections, I am going to see how long it lasts.


I went and got another gallon of bleach again and looked at the line waiting to get into Home Depot, might have been a half hour wait or more, I went over to Lowes and there was no line and they had what I needed, they might be my favorite store next to Parkrose Hardware as they appear to have better prices than everyone right now, even ebay is stupid priced when it comes to fittings, but I understand as who in their right mind would want to sell a single PVC fitting or a $2.00 part and go to the post office to ship it.
My garden is keeping me occupied and it will eventually start giving back, and what I get will taste good compared to what is at the store, too bad I can't grow heritage type Avocados, not the stuff Monsanto got their hands into(genetically altered), I miss what Avocados used to taste like, I also miss what Oranges used to taste like.
I fell down on a roof today and slid a ways on my arm before I stopped, it don't feel so good, I have been telling that customer that I might stop doing that house for a couple years now, well I told her that was the last time, I had not even done anything yet, I was just getting on the upper roof from the lower roof to start the job, I had not even started my blower yet, I was wondering when I was going to stop sliding as it is kinda steep, I would not even get on the roof when it was wet for the last several years as it was too slippery/steep, I am getting a little more retired every day.

I got a phone call a while back from someone asking to confirm my name, address, and phone number I believe, I told the guy whatever he was selling I was not buying, as I hung up I heard him say kinda excitedly "wait", I am starting to think it might have had something to do with the stimulus thing(boosting the economy).

It wasn't. You'll either get a check or direct deposit, depending on how you last filed. I'm still waiting on mine but my daughter and a lot of people I know have gotten deposits.

I did my taxes back in February, do they inform you of a deposit?
When I go to the bank I go inside, it's been 5/10 years since I used the drive thru, the lobby is closed right now so I have been working but have not depositing the checks as the drive thru line is too long, I also have not put checks in an envelope type deposit(night deposit) in 20/30 years, I just want to go in and be helped.

I forgot to post the photo of my arm.

We got our $2400 direct deposit on Wednesday. My understanding is if you got a tax refund (or had to pay) via check by mail, it will take a little bit to get the paper check. Depositing checks in the ATM now is super easy. You put the check in (no envelope), it scans it, you confirm the amount is right and your done. You can even just take a picture with a smartphone if your bank has a mobile banking app.