Take-down fence

Here’s an idea for folks who may need, as I do, a privacy fence that can be removed to drive a tractor through, for instance. The details of its construction show better before being painted, so here it is. Next spring I’ll paint it and maybe put some ornamental grass in front of the posts.

Since this fence is probably going to be removed some day, I did not set the 4X4 posts in concrete, as I would have done for a permanent fence; instead, just dug holes about two feet deep and gave a good tamping to the dirt as I shoveled it around them.

To those posts I air-nailed 1X3-1/2 X4” pieces of oak at 12” intervals, beginning 18” above ground level. Over those I nailed 3 1/2”-wide pieces of 2X4. Over these were nailed 1X3X44” vertical oak strips. Horizontal rails are 1X3X76” oak. They are laid over the spacers and not nailed, allowing them to be removed for entrance of a tractor or vehicle. All the 3" oak strips are salvaged from another fence and have been in use for at least 20 years, so far without paint or preservative. Also, they were free, making them a very good deal.

I had to use 16-gauge finish air nails because framing nails blew the short wood spacers apart. My plan is to set a 6” construction screw through each of the upright oak strips where they cross the spacers if and when the 16 gauge nails fail. If I only use one screw the post assemblies will be easily removed if I want to take the fence down some day.

How to eat weeds and collect "green" info

Other than dandelions, I never thought much about weeds as food, though I had a neighbor who moved in from Kentucky and often talked about the joys of eating pokeweed. I’d want confirmation of that before I gave it a try.

I may never eat a weed, but in a book entitled “Weeds - Guardians of the Soil” by Joseph A. Cocannouer is a chapter about “Weeds as Food” for anyone inclined toward this sort of experimentation. The link is here.

I found the weed book on a web site devoted to environment and rural development work: journeytoforever.org

The site covers a wide scope of information, including reproductions of books on small farms and gardening in what they call “Journey to Forever Online Library.” - Here’s a direct link to the farm library.

Harvest black walnuts

Harvesting walnuts ain't easy no matter what you do but they are so freakin' tasty and walnuty that no matter how much time and sweat you put into it, you're going to be rewarded.

First is to get the hulls off. Dad used to put them down on the driveway and just drive over them many times and many days. Eventually the hulls came off, became part of the driveway and he'd rake up the nuts.

Trouble with that, for me, is the army of neighborhood squirrels who'll steal you blind. Which also means I have to beat the squirrels to getting the nuts in the first place, and I can't leave them out to dry. But I do soften them up by driving over them.

From there, I put them in a kids' plastic swimming pool in the garage and I stir them every day or two with a rake to speed the drying process. Be sure to keep the hulls away from the garden and compost pile - for the same reason you never plant a walnut tree near a garden. It's the kiss of death.

It is recommended by the University of Minnesota Extension Office that the nuts be cured for two weeks, then stored in a fairly humid, cool place.

They say that before shelling the nuts they should be soaked in water for about 24 hours. If nuts rise to the top of the water they're no good. Well, maybe. I tried it with mixed results, but the nasty mix of walnut goo and water makes this a worthless exercise, especially when the shelling process seemed no easier.

As for the shelling process, I've recently decided that the easiest and surest way to go at it is to wrap the walnuts in a clean but worn-out towel or heavy rag, hold it over a piece of steel and give it a wham with a hammer. Two whams probably.

Pick from the towel all the shell shards that contain nut meat and whatever tiny good parts you can find, put them in a container and take them to a quiet, well-lit spot with a nut pick and carefully separate the nut meat from the things that will break your teeth.

For preservation of the nut meats, the advice from Minnesota is to bake them for 10-15 minutes at 215 degrees. Otherwise, you can refrigerate them in a jar or plastic bag for up to nine months, or frozen and kept for up to two years.

Garden fence for deer and small animals

I've found only one defense for my garden against deer and smaller critters such as raccoons and groundhogs.

Over the many years I've been gardening, I experimented with all sorts of remedies that have been touted by advertisers and recommended by garden writers. I've concluded there's only one reliable defense and that is a fence - either a really high (like seven feet) chain link or woven wire fence, or a really good electric fence which is, of course, easier and cheaper.

I've been fencing with electricity for the past several years, experimenting with different types of chargers and configurations. The only installation that works for me is a five-strand fence powered by an AC charger rated at 10 miles - meaning it will carry a meaningful shock through electric-fence wire for 10 miles.

My garden, which is about 60 ft. by 90 ft. sits a long distance from the house, so I had to bury an electric wire under the lawn and under two driveways, but this thing is worth it. Every year I find traces of deer trying to bust the system, but usually only once. That kind of shock trains a deer pretty quick.

It takes about a quarter-mile of wire to go around my garden with five strands, but the wire is very light-weight and fairly cheap. Five strands are required because the lowest strand is only about three inches off the ground, the next about two inches higher, then another three or so. No critter except maybe mice and moles will get under it because it is so low. The top wire is only about 3-ft. high, which a deer could easily jump if it could figure it out. Lucky for me all my deer pests are too dumb for that.

Such a design means the gardner must religiously trim the grass and weeds from under that lower wire to keep it from shorting out.

The "posts" are fiberglass sticks that you can push into the ground with your foot, with clips for the wire, except for the corner posts which are regular steel "T" posts with an anchor at the base. They have to be driven in securely with a post driver and provided with those yellow insulator things you see in the photo. All the parts are available at Tractor Supply Company.

Strawberry planter from bricks

Many years ago when Rosalie, the resident strawberry eater, wanted to grow our own, I put out a bunch in one corner of the garden and soon grew to regret it.

Strawberries are not that easy to control. They go every which way and there's a definite routine one should follow to do it right, and it's a lot of work. But that's not what I'm here to talk about. Likely the growing info is easy to find on the Internet, or maybe I'll get to it later here.

What I'm here for now is to tell you how to make a quick and easy planting bed for strawberries, or anything else.

Those bricks in the photo above were free for the hauling, and you find bricks like these if you're patient and persistent. And if you can't wait for free ones, you can buy them at Bowerson Shale in Hanover, OH.

It took about 60 bricks to make an 8-ft. circle around a 6-inch-high pile of soil. That's big enough to plant a dozen strawberry plants. You can't see it in the photo, but there's a small (2-ft.-high), woven-wire fence around it - enough to keep out deer and other pests, so far at least.