Laying Pipe

PVC Project (Laying Pipe): Bird Back 40

Somewhere, in a galaxy far, far away, a young and excited young boy is royally cheesed off. He is visiting the blog that is Sacramento Vegetable Gardening for the very first time thanks to the rather suggestive label of "laying pipe" (plus a few others that I will think up later).

Relax kid. This isn't the kind of show you were hoping to find. We're not laying that kind of pipe -- nor would I ever write about such a thing. Who would read it? A tryst involving a middle-aged married couple? Blech! Hit the search button again quick and get me out of here before I see anything that might fry my eyeballs.

Installing New PVC Line

However, if you're never-ending curiosity has forced you to stay -- let me tell you exactly what kind of pipe we're laying in today's blog. Because you just might be laying some of the exact same stuff someday. In this case? It's PVC irrigation pipe, and yet another irrigation project in the Backyard that is Bird.

This adventure of landscaping a large backyard has taken many twists and turns. Sometimes I get it right. Many times I don't. When the wife that is Venus and I first gazed upon the backyard spaces that greeted us in our North Natomas backyard, we saw nothing but clay dirt. There were certainly lots of possibilities that went with the dirt, but the best you got five years ago was imagination and bare dirt. Lots and lots of bare dirt.

I'll admit -- I did have some prior landscaping experience. I had totally destroyed a yard in Madera County with landscaping efforts before I discovered there were two types and two sizes of drip irrigation fittings. The discovery would come after different fittings to different hoses began to literally explode into different pieces thanks to PVC manifolds that were installed sans "pressure regulators."

Bird Back 40: 2007-Bare Dirt

Pressure regulators? What are those and why do I need them? I would soon discover why. But to this day I still can't figure out why some brainiac decided there had to be two different drip irrigation sizes -- with both so close in size (.50 opposed to .57) that it's impossible to tell them apart with the naked eye unless you know exactly what you're doing.

I had a little better time of it when it came to landscaping our first North Natomas home. Ah -- but then I had acquired the valued assistance of a retired rocket scientist and engineer who not only knew his nuclear missile systems -- but also how to install drip irrigation. Talk about your dual majors.

But that first yard -- like most in the wilds of North Natomas -- was no bigger than your average postage stamp. If you were using more than one valve for irrigation drip purposes -- you had committed the sin of planting far too much seed. If you needed more than one valve for lawn sprinklers, you had committed the error of planting a lawn on your roof.

PVC Project: 2007

But with the Bird Back 40? There was room. There was room for everything that captured a gardener's fancy. One could plant, plant and plant again and still not come close to scratching the surface of a "fully landscaped Back 40." It was here where you could let your imagination "run wild" and Venus and I have been doing just that.

I knew -- very early on in this process -- that the one drip system and the one sprinkler system that serviced our old yard wasn't going to come close to satisfying the concerns of the new stretch of land. So I planned ahead. Rather than one drip system -- I would install two. Rather than one valve dedicated to sprinklers -- I would reserve at least two and perhaps three.

Boy was I ever off. Thus the need to "lay pipe" from time to time to address glaring and distressing drops in water pressure during key irrigation periods.

New PVC Project: 2012

It was the rocket scientist turned father-in-law who came up with the rather ingenious idea of using clamps to bolt drip line to the bottom of a fence. This meant you could line an entire backyard fence line with enough drip lines to irrigate any landscaping project.

Almost...

It would be a few years before I realized that drip lines can only handle so much pressure. And the further you extend a drip line? The less pressure you get. Instead of getting a flow of water at the end of a 200 foot drip-line extension -- you get a trickle. Trickles don't equal successful fruit trees or heirloom tomato production. Trickles equal trouble.

I learned that lesson all too well a few years ago when I split off this line into another (fun detailed here) -- plus tapped into the drip line feeding a very small section of the front yard. While this did serve to increase water pressure somewhat, it was clear that I had failed to install enough PVC pipe for the overtaxed line, and had placed far too much of a demand on the drip line bolted against the fence.

PVC T: New line joins existing line

Which leads to the latest project of -- you guessed it -- laying pipe. After hacking into the all important PVC irrigation line near the manifold -- I cut a new trench carefully between citrus and fruit tree plantings. This wasn't like the irrigation project all those years ago when Venus and I first gazed upon our all-dirt Back 40. There was nothing to run into then. We could and did cut straight lines because there were no trees or boxes to get in our path.

Not this time. There are tree roots here. Watch out for that box over there! Who in Hades put that rock in my path?

PVC Overkill!

After many fits and starts -- twists and turns -- plus the addition of a new trenching shovel -- the digging part was over. Hacking into and installing a PVC T connector on the existing line I'd buried all those years ago (never expecting to dig back up again) went far smoother than I ever could have imagined. From that point forward? The job was as easy as pie: Glue, hold for compression, tear glued hand away from pipe. Who needs skin anyway?

It may have been overkill (OK, so it WAS overkill), but I made sure to create dual exit points at the end of the PVC line. I'd just about had it with low water pressure in the garden and wanted to ensure that I wouldn't have to deal with this problem again. I won't. The new lines, and the new drip sprinklers attached to the new lines, provide me with all the coverage I'll ever need and more.

Test Bed: Bird Back 40

A well soaked in-ground test bed equals equal parts great corn, squash, pumpkin and tomato crops. The new line will also open up new areas and new possibilities for additional plantings. Because I've always had that super-secret desire for a lawn on my roof.

Something Wickedly Good This Way Comes

Overgrown Raised Gardening Bed

Monsters lurk here...

The name of the blog IS, after all, Sacramento Vegetable Gardening. I suppose I'd better get back to writing about THAT -- rather than grapes, bratty cats, shelving purchased from Target and a million and a half other boring things.

The wife that is Venus and I are slowly getting the Bird Back 40 back into order after a long winter slumber. The weather certainly has been a plus. Many of the beds have been prepared for the upcoming spring and summer gardening seasons. A few even hold some tempting crops.

But not the one pictured above. That's our "jungle bed." This is the only 8X8 foot bed in the Bird Back 40. It is the largest bed we have. In past years? It has played host to heirloom tomato plants, potatoes, cucumbers, all things watermelon and a host of other crops.

Weeds Anyone?

I always try to rotate my tomato plantings from bed to bed. The goal is to give each bed a two to three year break from heirloom tomato plantings. I'm not always successful at this, but I do try. After planting heirloom tomatoes in this bed two seasons ago, Venus utilized it for bell peppers, green onions, eggplant, carrots and a host of other items.

Last year was a rather trying year for both us. While we did go through the gardening routine, sometimes our heart wasn't quite in it. The death of Venus' father affected us both deeply, and in dramatically different ways. He was responsible for much of the raised bed construction in the Bird Back 40. It was his design -- his baby. I was hesitant to move on without him.

Venus with her father, Gale, on Lake Nicaragua

Venus, meanwhile, had the rather unenviable task of combing through a household of memories. Her father's home not only held his belongings, but also the personal items that belonged to her mother, who passed from cancer six years earlier. The house also held treasured family belongings from relatives long-since passed. Every shelf -- every box -- held something unique.

As a result, we fell behind on gardening duties for much of the year. There was just so much to do -- so much to accomplish -- one could get easily overwhelmed. An afternoon of tilling the dirt served to be a welcome respite, but it's a chore that we did not get to relish in nearly enough. So, we fell behind.

Hidden Rows of Parsnips

When you fall behind in gardening duties, you're greeted by gardening beds that were never cleaned following the summer growing season. They are beds that hold the skeletons of peppers and other items that are long since gone, and are also choked with fall and winter weed growth. Our chore this past weekend was to clean it out and prepare for spring.

And while removing some seasons worth of growth did Venus discover that she had a root cellar that she and I had no clue existed. While we thought we had harvested everything from this bed at the close of summer, Venus stumbled upon something fairly remarkable underneath a canopy of weeds and brush.

WHOA!

There -- in perfect little rows planted the previous spring -- grew the unmistakable sign of parsnips. They had overwintered in the garden, Protected by the growth of vegetables long since dead and gone and a jumble of weeds grew monster roots. This was like no parsnip we had ever seen.

Yet -- there they were: Row after row of fat, white parsnips. What are parsnips you ask? Good question. Up until Venus started growing them, I don't think I'd ever tasted one. Many people refer to parsnips as the "poor cousin to carrots." Like carrots and potatoes, parsnips are a root vegetable. They are sweeter than carrots, but are starchy like potatoes. And, yes, if you're wondering: mashed parsnips with garlic and fresh honey makes for a fine side dish.

In the Roman Empire, parsnips were considered to be an aphrodisiac. This isn't all that surprising since the Romans considered just about everything to be an aphrodisiac. Now you know what most adults did before TV was invented.

But, back to parsnips.

Getting these things out of the ground was no easy task. They had grown well beyond the soft planter mix in the raised bed, directly into the clay soil located a foot below. Clay soil doesn't release items easily. So, while root vegetables like carrots are rather easy to pull, these monster parsnips required the assistance of a well-placed shovel.

Partial Harvest. Parsnips Anyone?

These are the largest root vegetables we have ever grown. While we were expecting them to be somewhat woody, much like a radish that's been in the ground for far too long, we were surprised by the texture that greeted us. Parsnips can be shredded raw into a salad, cooked and eaten as a vegetable side dish, or mashed into a concoction that looks like a serving of mashed potatoes.

And for someone who had never experienced the poor cousin to carrots, I must admit, I'm impressed.

She's Got Legs

2011 Heirloom Tomato Plant Starters

As you can plainly tell in the photo to your immediate right -- yes indeed -- it's true. My babies have "legs." In other words -- they're "leggy."

And you thought this post was going to be exciting. I am such a tease. No such luck here.

The 2011 heirloom tomato growin' season is now underway in a Bird bedroom -- tucked inside a home on our North Natomas Back 40. Despite the tough January -- followed by an excruciating February -- the wifey and I found time to do what we do best: plant tomato seed and grow "leggy" tomato starters.

I must admit -- there's nothing special about our seed starting efforts this year. We simply did not have the time to "build" our own soil from parts of this and that. We didn't have the time or energy to plant row after row of scrumptious tomato starters. Nope -- what you see is what you get. The first 30 cups were planted on Super Bowl Sunday -- about three days before Venus' father took his last breath.

We finally got around to planting the last 20 cups a few days ago. They haven't germinated like the others yet. But -- give them time. They will eventually spring to life.

This wasn't part of my "master plan." The so-called master plan was to build a seed starting rack this year -- a rack big enough to holding 80-to-100 cups. But I never did get around to building that rack. The man who used to help me with these woodworking projects has since passed. This means I'm on my own for next year.

I won't lie. That thought is just a tad scary for me. But, life goes on right? The old man would have demanded as much. So we march on and persevere.

Sacramento gardener extraordinaire Angela (Angie) Lyons -- who gifted us last year with the most beautiful tomato starter we received (a Dr. Wyche's Yellow) -- tipped me on a mail order place that sold the coveted green azalea starter cups in whatever number I wanted. The soil we're using came from a bag of normal Miracle Gro planter mix that I purchased for the wife last year and she never got around to using.

I had my doubts at first. A six month old bag of Miracle Gro planter mix that has been through its share of early rain activity tends to have a fine growth of moss on it. But -- any worries I had about germination problems have been put to rest. The first to spring to life was the Kelloggs Breakfast. Others soon followed and I'm happy to report that we achieved 100% germination success this year.

That's a first. Perhaps that moss wasn't such a bad thing after all. I'll make a mental note of that.

The seeds that I planted have all developed their first true leafsets -- and are intent into growing right into the light systems propped up under a seed starting contraption composed of nothing but bits and pieces of old PVC pipe  and pipe fittings that I had lying around the backyard. They're not glued together -- which means I can take this contraption apart in the late spring and store it in an ordinatry shoebox.



PVC "Contraption" complete with Gro Lights



The 4.5 inch azalea cups I'm using are stacked into what are called "shuttle trays." I quickly learned that the term "shuttle" is an English term. While these things were easy to find and order through any British manufacturer -- I couldn't find anything comparable closer to home. That's when I discovered that the term "shuttle" didn't exactly make it across the pond. These trays -- which hold ten of the 4.5 inch azalea cups -- are referred to as "gardening" or "display" trays in the States.

Aren't you glad that you asked?

These trays will come in handy when it comes time to move the starter babies inside and out during the warmer spring months. Instead of attempting to move 50-60 individual cups, the wonderful wife that is Venus and I will only be required to hoist a tray or five outside.

Tre' Easy.

When will we move the starter plants to the outside world? That's a tricky question. If it's a normal year -- with normal conditions -- we will start giving our starter plants a taste of the outside world around the beginning of April. But -- since no year is "normal" -- this is a trick question. When the weather warms to suitable temperatures -- and night-time temperatures no longer sink to bone-chilling levels -- then "it's time."

Until then? We'll keep the babies safe. We'll keep them warm. We'll keep them watered. We'll keep them fed.

And we'll watch those legs develop.

As for what we're growing this year? A "partial list" is below:

TOMATOES (not in alphabetical order, I'm too tired):

Jubilee

Tigerella

Black Krim

Eva Purple Ball

Kelloggs Breakfast

Virginia Sweets

Marianna's Peace

Lemon Boy

Mortgage Lifter

Yellow Brandywine

Brandywine

Beefsteak (a Gale Stromberg favorite)

Bradley

Evil Seed

Pineapple

Amish Paste

Super Sioux

1884

Royal Hillbilly

Hendersons Winsall

Cherokee Purple

Omar's Lebanese

Celebrity

Mortgage Lifter

Campbell's 1327

Druzba

Thessaloniki

PEPPERS:

Jalapeno

Purple Jalapeno

Mucho Nacho Jalapeno

Big Bertha (purple Bell)

Green Bell Pepper

Golden Cal Wonder (Yellow Bell)

Purple Beauty Bell Pepper (Red Bell)

BASIL:

Thai

Genovese

One final note: Many people have asked me, "why grow your own? It seems like a lot of work. Why not just buy your starters at the nursery?" Each and every question is a good one. The answer is simple: We're INSANE!!!

Actually -- that's not quite the truth. The real truth is that most nurseries do not offer nearly the kind of selection that we've planted. You're simply not going to find a Lemon Boy or a Marianna's Peace at your local nursery. You will find a few of these -- to be sure. But if you want the best that heirloom tomatoes have to offer -- the answer is simple.

You grow your own.

Happy Trails Cold Warrior!

Gale Stromberg with the Arriba Rocket

It's the kind of party that the man to your right would have very much enjoyed. I wish he could be there. After all, it is in his honor. It's my hope and prayer -- however -- that he will be there in spirit.

I lost a big part of me this past week -- a loss that not even I can comprehend at this point. The gentleman to your right, pictured in front of the rocket he helped build (the Arriba), passed away last week from lung cancer. His death closed a chapter on a wonderful period in my life and in the life that is the wonderful wife -- Venus.

Gale Stromberg -- Rocket Man Extraordinaire -- took his final breath under heavy sedation inside a Kaiser Hospital Room in Roseville. The old man was 75-years young. With him, passed the story -- and a life -- of a lifetime.

Services for Gale -- and the party that he most certainly would have enjoyed -- will take place this weekend.

Gale with daughter, Venus

I wasn't expecting this -- to be be brutally honest. Up until his dying day I kept telling him -- more like pleading -- that he had at least another 20-years of life yet to live. There are unfinished projects to complete I told him. There is a lawn to plant. Landscaping projects demand his attention. There are gardening boxes yet unbuilt.

Yet -- nothing could sway the cancer that claimed the life of the most wonderful father that I will ever have in this lifetime. He may have been -- by law -- just a father-in-law. But the men who proceeded him in my lifetime can't hold a candle to the impact he had on me.

There are those men -- and women -- who come around and brighten your life ever so rarely that you can count them on the fingers of just one hand. Gale Stromberg was that man. His passing leaves a hole inside of me that I doubt will ever be filled.

The title to this post is fitting -- because the gentle man that was Gale Stromberg was indeed the consumate Cold Warrior. A self-taught engineer who grew up during World War II -- Stromberg volunteered most of his life in the service of this country. His accomplishments are the stuff of legend.

Gale with grandaughter, Celina

By the time I met Gale -- as a young man in desperate pursuit of his lovely daughter -- most of his work on behalf of the United States military had already come and gone. Gale Stromberg had retired to the hills of Auburn -- where he put his engineering skills to work on cracking the thick lava cap that blanketed the half acre of backyard so he could grow citrus trees and other wonders. In every backyard that Gale ever landscaped, citrus trees grow. Citrus trees thrive.

Gale loved his citrus. Gale loved a challenge. Crack that lava cap he did in the most ingenious of ways. Where other men used dynamite -- Gale used the gray matter between his ears. No problem -- no obstacle -- ever slowed him down. His engineering skills won the day.

Gale was born in 1935 -- and his formal education lasted little beyond a high school diploma. Perhaps it was the sight and sound of the V2 rockets used by Nazi, Germany in World War II that drove him into the field of rocket science, nobody is really sure. But the Rocket Man left his mark.

After a short career at Aerojet in Rancho Cordova -- the father-in-law went to work for United Technologies (UTC) in the Bay Area. It was there where the old man help develop the fuel systems for the Atlas, Titan and Rapier missiles and the dreaded Tomahawk Cruise Missile that was unveiled to the world for the first time during the first Gulf War against Saddam Hussein.

Gale and Venus on Lake Nicaragua

If he wasn't designing fuel systems that struck fear into the hearts of ruthless dictators around the world, he was helping design booster rockets for the Space Shuttle program. Although his work took place so very long ago -- elements of it are still in use today -- long after the old man said goodbye to the 40-hour work week.

When the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall finally fell -- Gale's career in rocket science came to an end. Funding for the research and design work that he dedicated his life too dried up. He was still fairly young when he was offered the Golden Handshake that many defense workers would receive -- but the old man recognized opportunity and jumped at it.

He would spend the rest of his life building garden boxes, buying and selling homes during the real estate boom, entertaining grandchildren and studying the somewhat young man his daughter brought home to his house one day. He just wasn't sold yet on the kid who would someday call him father-in-law. That is -- until -- I asked for his help in building a garden box for the backyard.

Suddenly -- I was alright in his world.

Stromberg Gardening Boxes

The garden boxes in use today in our North Natomas farm are a far cry from the simple project boxes we tackled at first. Inspired by his original design -- I took it and produced something on a much grander scale. The "V for Venus"  gardening boxes that grow heirloom tomatoes, potatoes, vegetables, melons and other produce simply would not have happened without Gale Stromberg.

It's because of Gale that I can design and build boxes for any use. It's because of Gale Stromberg that I can install PVC irrigation systems for small and large yards. It's because of him that I can optimize the use of drip irrigation technologies. Because of him -- I can install electrical outlets and switches. I have carpentry, irrigation and electrical skills that I never dreamed I would ever acquire because of this one man.

I was a sponge. I soaked it all in. And -- over time - I came to love him like I had no other man. I didn't quite realize this until he had taken his last breath. But now -- that he's gone from this world -- I've come to realize what a treasure this man was.

Gale Stromberg with grandchildren

Cancer is a terrible way to die. It's a terribly dehabilitating disease that robs every last decency and respect from a man before robbing him of his last breath. Gale fought the good fight before his death. His final year was spent enjoying the myriad of western shows and movies that are shown on the Encore Western Channel. What he had marveled at in his youth on the silver screen -- he saw again from the comfort of his home.

When he had seen all there was to see -- and build all there was to build -- it was time for the final trip home.

Too bad none of us were ready to say goodbye.

"Adventures in" -- Check That -- "Errors in Gardening!"

The sun is shining! The ground is drying out! It's time to get out there and DIG to my heart's content!

Not so fast, Needlemeyer.

Unfortunately -- I came up with a perfect time to get infected with a disease known simply as "The Crud." You know what this is. Chances are -- you've already had it. You know? The symptoms include hacking cough, congested chest, the chills? Just when you think you're coming out of it -- it suddenly gets worse? Or -- when you think that it can't possibly get any worse -- it does?

Yeah -- that's "The Crud." And I have it. Lucky me. Just in time for Spring!

What is a gardener to do then? Unfortunately -- not much. I got this case of "The Crud" from the wonderful wife that is Venus -- who did battle with it all last week. This "stuff" has been making the rounds at work -- knocking people out and off the job for anywhere from a week to ten days. It's just downright nasty. In response -- I had been consuming two oranges -- or an orange and an apple -- every morning for months on end -- hoping I could fight this off.

You know the old saying? An Apple a Day Keeps The Crud Away? No, Needlemeyer, it don't.

There would be no post-hole digging this past weekend. Besides -- the Friday rain had pretty much washed away all possibilities of installing the second and final half of my table grape arbor. I mean -- it's tough to sink posts when the two foot post-holes you dug the previous weekend are filled with two feet of rainwater.

What's that? Bale them out you say? With what? A soup ladle? Be my guest. Besides -- I tried that. The ground was so saturated with rainfall that whatever water got taken out was immediately replaced. No -- there would be no sinking of the posts this weekend.

So -- what is a sick and frustrated gardener to do then? Just WASTE AWAY the first sunny and nice weekend of 2010? Stay inside and watch TV? Take a long afternoon nap? HEY -- THE SUN IS SHINING!

Well -- there was one project that I could do that wouldn't take much physical effort. See that nice little section of bare clay soil to the right? That's a small patch of ground against the back side of the house that desperately screamed for beautification. This patch of ground has frustrated me for quite some time. At first -- I had planted a camelia bush back there -- thinking that the shade of the house would protect it.

Bad idea. Oh -- the camelia got protection alright. But it was protected from the morning sun. By the time the clock hit High Noon -- that camelia got a full-on blast of summer heat and summer sunshine. It wilted against the heat. Leaves would burn and fall off. Nope -- as the wife pointed out last spring -- it wasn't going work. So I dug that camelia up -- moved it to another shady location (where it's very happy I might add and finally bloomed for the first time this year) -- and replaced that camelia with two tree roses.

While the roses did well -- as you can tell -- that area needed "more." That hard clay soil just looks ugly -- plus the weeds get to be problematic. The retired-rocket-scientist father-in-law who also serves as my landscaping inspiration suggested filling the area in with bark -- which wasn't a bad idea -- but I wanted more.

I do have a growing pile or collection of scrap wood from earlier box building efforts. Why not use that to build a small flower box the retired-rocket-scientist father-in-law suggested? I must admit -- it wasn't a bad idea. I did have four, two-foot long sections of 4X4 posts that I had shaved off from the posts I had purchased earlier for arbor-building efforts. Why not "recycle and re-use?"

It was about that point where the retired-rocket-scientist father-in-law asked the simple question of: Why did you purchase four, eight-foot long, 4X4 posts and cut two feet off?

My answer: "Because I needed six-foot posts for the arbor, Gale."

His response: "Why didn't you buy two, 12-foot long, 4X4 posts and just cut them in half?

I hate engineers. They're just so smug. And they're so right. As I stood there -- soaking in his simple advice -- I realized he was right. It was right about that time that I started to feel like -- and resemble -- a Jack ***. DOH! "Error in Gardening" Mistake #1.

It was also about that time that I realized that I didn't have quite enough of those two-foot sections to make the flower bed that I wanted. What I wanted was to be four feet long and two feet wide. That would require six, two-foot long sections of leftover 4X4 posts. I only had four.

Know what this means?

Back to Home Depot! Because -- Bill Bird just can't make ONE gardening error. There's got to be SEVERAL. Sooooo -- back I went -- fervently hoping the entire time that Home Depot did not stock the 12 foot sections of 4X4 posts that the retired-rocket-scientist father-in-law had suggested. Guess what? They did. DOH! "Error in Gardening" Mistake #2.

But I needed those two-foot sections that are the result of buying eight-foot-long, 4X4 posts and cutting two feet off. And so -- that's what I did. I bought four more eight-foot-long, 4X4 posts -- had our handy-dandy Home Depot associate cut two feet off each -- loaded everything into the car and headed home. It wasn't a terrible waste you understand. The six foot sections of 4X4 posts will be used for the second arbor. And I finally had the missing two-foot sections I would need to complete the flower bed project.

To the engineers who are reading this post (Garry) -- you have probably guessed by now what "Error in Gardening" Mistake #3 will be. I needed two, two-foot sections of 4X4 posts to complete the flower bed project. But -- instead of coming home with just two -- I came home with four. DOH! Suddenly -- the size of the flower bed in question expanded to six feet in length.

As I began to assemble this bed with my handy-dandy Makita drill and gold screws -- it suddenly dawned on me that I didn't have the necessary number of metal straps and reinforcements this "flower bed" in question would need. These pressure-treated posts are much heavier than the "Lincoln Logs" I had used earlier for other box building efforts. What I had at home just wasn't going to suffice. The bed in question to your right would need more -- otherwise it would just fall apart.

Back to Home Depot, Needlemeyer! I needed tin straps. I needed metal straps. Fortunately -- this was a short trip. There would be no "Error in Gardening" Mistake #4 (unless you want to call this entire endeavour one huge mistake). Putting together a box like this is quite easy -- and moves quickly -- when you finally have the parts that you need. Although I was tiring quickly from "The Crud," work progressed smoothly from that point forward.

But -- building the box is only half of the project. It's also the easiest part of the project. Moving the bed into the correct space -- centering the bed -- and finally -- leveling the bed isn't easy. The hard clay soil isn't level. Plus -- the box needed to be even with the surrounding concrete -- which it wasn't. And -- you can't forget about irrigation. Installation of drip irrigation must be done before the first cup of planter mix is placed inside the bed -- otherwise -- you've got problems.

Hard work? You bet! But at some point -- you do begin to see the payoff. Venus and I have spent years installing different gardening beds for different purposes. Some hold our famous heirloom tomatoes. Still others hold potatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, cucumbers, okra, lettuce and other greens.

We've dug multiple holes and built other boxes for fruit trees and fruit bushes like blueberries, thornless blackberries and thornless boysenberries. While we still have room to add a few other things (I never did get around to planting an Owari Satsuma Mandarin) -- the last part of our landscaping effort involves "beautification." It's the last step in any landscaping process. You get the essentials in first -- and beautify later. You don't want to dig up a lawn later -- or rake away bark or landscaping rock -- because you forgot something important.

And so -- this is how this one small area looks now. It's the one section of the yard that I can point too with all honesty and say "job well done." It's a small section to be sure -- maybe four feet wide and ten feet long -- but it's done now. Soon -- this is how the rest of the yard will look. We're not "there" yet. It's going to take another year or three before we can say "we're done here."

But we're getting there, Needlemeyer. We're getting there.