Despite feeling quite sick both Wednesday and Friday, I was perked up a bit today and got out around noon to do some more work on the tree house.
The most important thing I decided on today was the access method. This set of semi-stairs/semi-ladder will work fine. I did not route out slots, I just used screws. I hope they hold for a few years.
All of the wood I used to make the steps was once the four diagonal corner braces that I decided not to use to support the treehouse.
I also got part of the railing put in place today and did more to finish up the floor.
I also hauled out and hung the tire swing that we had brought with us from the old house when we moved. The boys hadn’t been on it for over a year. You can see one garden bed at the top of this picture.
I harvested these radishes tonight…the first time I’ve done enough “picking” in one night this year to use the word “harvest.” Interesting how they can vary so much in size. These were picked from a 2 square foot patch that I planted together with carrots. I left almost as many radishes in the ground as I picked…the others didn’t seem ready yet.
There are baby green tomatoes (between the size of a pea and a marble) on my Gardener’s Delight cherry tomato and my Cold Set tomato. There are flowers on the Rutgers and Super Marmande as well. Very promising!
This little broccoli flower is only a little over an inch in diameter. I’m hoping it grows up big and tasty along with all it’s friends.
I told the boys I would build them a tree house. I said it shortly before we knew we were going to move to a new house last year. The new house has only one back yard tree, so this is it.
The one-tree design was supposed to use diagonal corner supports that would lead back to the tree. I wasn’t a good enough woodworker to make this feel sturdy to me, so I opted for legs.
Two pairs of perpendicular cross-beams, screwed to the tree, form the main support structure. The plywood floor was a re-use scrounged from a thrown-away mini-golf putting green! I’ve only installed half the floor and none of the railing or roof parts yet.
The boys love it already!
I went out last night after dark with a flashlight into a slowly drizzling rain to see how the garden was feeling.
Broccoli, cauliflower and lettuces looking OK.
Radishes, carrots, cabbage looking OK.
But why do I keep seeing weird rapid movements out of the corner of my eye?
I shone my flashlight around to investigate and discovered that the garden beds were full of huge earthworms, hanging out 12 inches from their holes. When I spooked them, they could dash back from whence they came about 5 times faster than a human could slurp up a piece of spaghetti. My goodness they are QUICK!
Then I realized that my garden beds were now a singles bar for worms.
All is well! If the worms are happy enough to breed in my dirt, it can’t be that bad a place!
