by George Collins » Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:43 am
First, there was much more that I wanted to say in that previous post but when I got home, because of a level of fatigue not felt in quite some time, the memory failed. After a nap, everything feels much better . . . Except the legs. They've been caring everything else through this sprint for 14 days straight now and are now at the point of rebellion.
Next: Thanks Guy, but I can take no credit. Youngblood taught me to use the concrete reenforcement wire, my friend had the idea to use the rebar and Ruth Stout taught me to mulch is deep.
One thing I did invent today (and surely this isn't the only time this tool has been invented) is a premarked marking string. We cut two strings 35' long and tied knots at the 20', 25', 30' and 35' marks. We started with the two apples at 35' apart on the northernmost part of the yard. Next we placed the Asain pears 35' apart in the Far Eastern aspect which appears in the photo above as being on right side of the big hickory that dominates that part of their yard.
Next, using two strings, we formed an equilateral triangle using the two apples as the base. The sides of the triangle measured 30' as denoted by proper knot. There we placed our first European pear.
For the next pear, we anchored one string to the spot for the apple and one to the spot for the pear and placed a flag at the point where the strings met 30' from the apple and 25' from the pear.
To place the next pear, we anchored to string to the site for first pear and the newly marked spot for the second and where the knots representing 25' intersected, we dropped a flag.
Flagging the rest of the yard was merely an extrapolation of this technique.
Using this method, we were assured of never having trees spaced too closely together and the layout of the garden was dictated by math rather than emotion.
Things ran very smoothly throughout the entire process. We finished mulching the last tree at about 4:00.
"Solve world hunger, tell no one." "The, the, the . . . The Grinch!"
"If you can't beat them, bite them."