Archaeology

Archeology

April 2, 2015

What a beautiful morning, and the first one this year for sitting on the screened porch. The air is full of bird song after a freshening rain that started during the wee hours. It looks like it will rain more – thunderstorms are predicted.

I am glad I worked so hard yesterday planting seed for early above-ground crops. I also planted all of the Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower and Brussels Sprouts plants that were in a tray on the porch table. From my view here of the raised beds, I can see the plants have perked up from the rain. These cool weather crops also enjoy the dip in temperature after yesterday's warmth and bright sun.

Next week, as the moon wanes, I will concentrate on the early below-ground crops: beets, carrots, radishes, etc. That's when the He-Shi-Ko Scallions and the Giant Musselborg Leek plants will be removed from their tray and planted in the ground. I love root crops, with the scent and taste of life-giving soil.

I  hope my order of purple potato starts will arrive soon. They are part of next week's plan.

 This is Raised Bed #2. The squares of sticks mark there I plan to put “potato towers” this year, instead of planting potatoes underground in hills or rows. It's a grand plan, but currently I have nothing to use for constructing four “towers” or, essentially, potato-growing bins.

A few days ago, I went down to our barn to search around for potato tower construction material possibilities. We don't use our barn much anymore, since we “retired” from raising sheep several years ago. I call our barn “The Graveyard” because it seems to be a place where items go to repose and become buried.

I did not find anything I could use for “potato towers”, but I came across various relics from our lives on this farm:

 Sheep shears

 Ye Olde Manure Spreader

 Play cookware - how did these end up in the barn?

Then I came upon a gold mine, the mother lode – well, for a gardener.

Piled on the ground between an old table and cabinet was a big pile of little clay pots.

I had forgotten about these. They were given to us by a dear neighbor who lived across the road  years ago. I considered it to be a great gift at the time, then stored them, where else, in the barn (I did not have a potting shed at that time.) Years of animals burrowing and digging around upset the pile of pots and churned up the soil underneath.

I kept picking them up and stacking as many as I could into two buckets I found nearby. After those were full, I kept digging deeper and pulling up more pots, which I piled up next to the “dig”.

I found a couple of larger ones, but the vast majority were little pots, just the right size to start seeds, nurse seedlings along, or share excess plants with other gardeners. Some were packed with dirt from the “dig”.

It was hard to believe how many I kept finding. I pulled torn-up plastic sheeting from the edge and found more. After awhile, all I found was dirt.

 

I did rather feel like an Archaeologist at a dig, gradually unearthing pottery from another era. This did seem like another era to me, a distinctly other part of my life when my generous neighbor was still alive, and when the barn was an active place where we spent a lot of time, full of conversation, sheep bleating, dogs barking, chickens clucking, and the swish of piles of hay.

I went to get my garden trowel, the closest I had to an Archeologist's tool, and returned to the “dig site”. I poked around in the dirt some more and, lo and behold …

… more finds. Was this so different from finding an exposed, curved edge of an ancient jaw or the rim of an old olla?

I had more work to do, but no more time that day to do it. The dig would have to wait until I had caught up on my garden work.

I brought my trowel and the two heavy buckets full of clay pots all the way from the barn to the well house. I plan to wash up all of the pots and stack them on a shelf in the potting shed, but they are not a high priority right now.

I have more work to do in the garden. I have yet to plant seeds for root vegetables. Someday I will pull those vegetables from the garden soil (with the help of my trowel), roots smelling of the underground, ready to be washed and put to use.