A Double Flouting

I did it again. I broke the rules of conventional thought on vegetable gardening. The roadside vegetable garden received a thick new layer of very fresh tree trimmer's wood chips earlier this spring to get it ready for planting. The soil was not tilled and never will be again. It was tilled the first year before applying the wood chips and my new corn patch that was annexed this year was turned before the wood chips were applied to it. The wood chips are a surface cover only. Decomposition and worms do all the soil churning work for me now. Already my soil is darker than it was last year.



Then I broke the rules again. Despite the early demise last year of some cucurbit family members from hypothermia from temperatures in the low forties after May 15th our average annual last frost date, I have already planted my warm season tomato, pepper, squash and melons, seeded cucumbers, pole beans, carrots and other assorted things and planted my potatoes.

The lows have been in the fifties for quite a spell despite the constant rain. The highs have been in the mid seventies and I just can't see how it could possibly be so rude as to freeze again or get really cold. Such an unconscionable event could wreck far more than these tiny vegetable starts.

After such a cold wet winter you would think I might be more patient and be more risk adverse, but it just feels right, warm wise, to plant earlier this year. So I did; a double flouting of the rules.

The corn can wait another two weeks though, especially since vegetable gardening or any personal gardening is done mostly on the sly or at the end of the day when there might be a few moments of time.



I have been busy with the excruciatingly slow, one coupling at a time plumbing. It is a very tight space and it all has to be properly and securely connected from the inside to below. Then it is supposed to flow at the proper descent to the turdbox that is still too high.

To the right of the white plumbing, the dark object attached to the main girder is the gas manifold that was installed today. Two guys in about a half a day installed the tank and ran the rough gas lines to the appliance locations inside the cozy cabin. Done. In half a day. Just two guys. It could make a person have a bit of a complex about their own rate of progress. Sigh!



My new gas tank isn't wholly unattractive even if it wasn't a brand spanking new, bright and shiny one. Still I wonder what color I should paint it?

There are some rules that cannot be flouted. A logical place to drill the well was next to the gas tank. The water line could run straight over to the cabin just like the gas line. State law, according to the well inspector man says otherwise. A well must be 50 feet away from any petro/carbon fuel site. This particular rule is currently under reconsideration he said since propane as a gas would foul the air not the ground water. But the state legislature hasn't changed the rule yet.



So my well will be drilled way up the driveway across from the telephone pole on the same side as the gas tank. Now the water line will have a much longer way to go to get to the cozy cabin.



I can plant the native Iris cristata in full sun with fine results despite what its more logical preferred light conditions would suggest.



I can grow Chicory, Chicorium intybus, an introduced Eurasian native and now cosmopolitan weed as a feature perennial in my sunny roadside flower bed. What rules?



I can finish the day knowing a little bit more progress was made on a dizzying array of tasks that need to be done and I got to spend some time in the vegetable garden.



A meeting has been set with a potential Client #6 and I am beginning to come to grips with the ending of my sabbatical. I did get to flout that, "you must have a job" rule for a nice long spell though.