I got to Westmore around noon, after having grappled with some errands. Unfortunately, Anne Marie had left the glass door lid on our coldframe all morning (my fault; I didn't warn her how hot it would get) and it was at least 100ºF in there. We quickly took off the lid and moved the entire thing into the partial shade of a tree in her front yard, where we hoped the breeze and the shade would cool it down. But then we needed something on top of the coldframe to keep those darn cats out. The best we could do was to unroll some decorative wire garden fences and drape them over the coldframe - but those pesky cats still got in. We just had to hope they would leave the flats and the seeds in them alone.
Next, we borrowed Doug's Ranger pickup truck and drove it down to Weitzel's to get our first batch of garden soil. Mr. Doug Weitzel and his wife, Audrey, run this operation with at least one of their sons, and have for years and years. They are some of the nicest people around, and they have great organic soil to boot. Mr. Weitzel told us in detail about how they cure their cattle manure compost for a minimum of two years, turning it and watering it thoroughly once a month - this process produces enough heat to kill any weed seeds that have been hanging out in the poo - all this before that manure compost ever comes near the soil loading facility! And I certainly believed him; no weeds in sight when we went to get our soil. Granted, it's still early even for weeds, but I'll bet that place is weed-free all season long.
We weren't after the manure, though. Mr. Weitzel has an organic topsoil/compost mix that is great for gardens, and this is what we bought. This stuff is shaken down over a screen of about a square inch to remove rocks, twigs, etc, and it looked, felt, and smelled great. We got a half yard, which is about all the Ranger would handle, and lugged it back to Westmore to unload it. Many wheelbarrowfuls later, all that was left in the bed of the truck was dust - Ben and I swept it out with some brooms onto a tarp to get as much as we possibly could - and the load of soil was in the garden! The good news is that yesterday's soil saga will not be repeated using the truck. It was mostly to gauge how much more soil we'd need, and it looks like we're going to need about 3 1/2 to 4 more yards (according to Chris' calculations). That'll all be delivered in one of Weitzel's dump trucks, and we can work from there. Hopefully, this will happen in the next week or so and we can really get the garden underway.
Then, we made our way to Old Town and ACE Hardware for some real plant tags and a thermometer for the coldframe. We also stopped by ReSource Fort Collins and bought a screen door to put over the coldframe as an anti-cat measure. Anti-cat Tip #1: Cover it up! We later drove by a roadside stand that said there were locally grown onion sets for sale. We had previously thought we wouldn't be able to do onions because we were going to get too late a start, but here was this nice guy with local sets for sale for a REALLY good price! We couldn't pass that up. So we bought 45 sets: 30 yellow and 15 red - all for just $3. It was great. When we got back to Westmore, we were itching to plant something in the soil we had just gotten. So we planted all the onions and both types of peas!
Today, Anne Marie and I are heading to Home Depot for some deer netting, which we'll drape over some hoops above the planted area to keep the cats out even when the soil is dry. Hopefully they won't try to climb on it...yeah right. But the netting provides protection against hail as well, so we were going to use it anyway. If any readers have good anti-cat garden tips, please comment and let me know! Thanks! Don't forget to check out our Facebook Page - you can see pictures there, among other things :) And as always, thanks for reading!
WOG out
