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Entry Date
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Nick Name
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Location
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Saturday, April 30, 2011
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cntryboy
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East Jordan, MI
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Entry 28 of 151 |
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Spent the last 2 days getting the first two spots ready to plant. When I went to bury the heat cables in the first cold frame I struck water 6 inches down. This is the lowest part of the patch and I was kind of expecting it as my water table is really high and some of the lowest part of my property has been standing in water for weeks. I dug out 10 inches of muck and joined the hole over to a drainage ditch that I had dug 2 weeks ago to try and direct water away from the patch. I had to make it deeper, but was able to drain all of the water out of the hole under my planting site. I layed the heat cable out about 7 inches apart in an S pattern over the entire cold frame area (5ft x 5ft). I then covered it with an inch of compost, an inch of pea gravel, and a layer of larger (about 1 inch) stones. I wanted the cable to be in complete contact with soil but not directly touching rocks and am hoping the gravel will help drain excess water from this spot. I then covered that with 2 inches of compost. That left me with about 5 inches to fill with dirt. I had moved 4 wheelbarrow loads into the shop last week and have had a fan blowing on it for a week. I mixed my amendments in the wheel barrow and added to the hole. It took all 4 wheelbarrows of dirt. This filled the hole and made about a 4 inch mound about 3 ft in diameter at the actual plant site for the first cold frame.
The second site was not as wet. The top 4 inches was dry enough to use, dug that out (about 3 wheelbarow loads). Set it aside and took out 2 more inches, then pushed heat cable down into the wet soil about 2 inches in the same S pattern. I put down an inch of compost and mixed the same amount of everything else to fill in the top 5 inches of the planting site.
The heat cables are on and the target planting date is still the 7th.
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