CULT: Iris Beds

From: Sharon McAllister <73372.1745@compuserve.com>

Dahliaman wrote:
        
>   I know that most of you have a lot bigger iris beds than me, but
>   I'll tell you one thing, I'll personnaly KNOW every tiny little
>   speck of dirt in my iris bed!

This approach pays off for larger gardens, too.  Our west garden has
eighty-seven 3' x 6' beds.  The east garden is a bit smaller with less
regularly shaped beds.

>   First I take my hand shovel (10 inch long) and I dig down to
>   about 6inch and I losen the soil and then I hand dig it and move
>   it to a pile for sun drying. after I get a good section dug out
>   I then take my little dirt strainer (hotdog bun tray) and the
>   next day I start shifting the soil to get rocks, roots, etc. out
>   of it.

>   I fill a 3gal bucket with the shifted soil and when it's full I
>   start back filling in the dug out area a hard full at a time.

We do much the same, but dig down 18".   The drying step isn't necessary
here, so we sift the dirt through a large screen directly into a specially
constructed box -- big enough to hold the dirt from one complete bed.  One
side slides up & down, held in place by bolts.  When the bed is ready to
refill, it can be opened and the contents spill into place.

<snip>
                                        
>   And the crasy things I've found that were buried when this
>   trailer park was built! just haven't found J.H.'s body yet.

Hwy. 70 once ran through our land, so we find chunks of asphalt as well as
the usual tins & bottles.  The strangest item to date, though, was the old
car body we dug through when putting in the water lines.

Sharon McAllister
73372.1745@compuserve.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help support ONElist, while generating interest in your product or
service. ONElist has a variety of advertising packages. Visit
http://www.onelist.com/advert.html for more information.
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index