Building With A Shovel

With so many things having been banned from Facebook and YouTube lately, there is now even more room for interesting videos to enjoy that might pertain to gardening.

There are two such videos that intrigue me.  Maybe you’ve seen one or both.  They involve using a few simple tools to make incredible things in one’s backyard.

The first involves digging a large, rectangular hole and, by very clever planning, digging another rectangular hole within it, making a swimming pool and deck.  It’s amazing!  The video is done as a time-lapse movie, so many days are compressed into a few minutes.  The guy doing it has more energy than any five people I know.  He even carries water from a nearby stream to fill the pool. 

The second video highlights a subterranean greenhouse.  It starts the same way, by digging a large rectangular hole.  Then some of the soil that was taken out is put back in, five feet or so below the terrain above.  Poles are put across the top of the rectangle, and plastic sheets cover them to make the top of the greenhouse.

Another very cool idea.  The ground below four feet tends to stay at about 50 degrees all the time.  Therefore, with a small amount of solar gain through the plastic, things can grow all year, and more importantly, are unlikely to freeze.

Here’s what I think: I suspect than if I dug either of these large, rectangular holes in my yard they would fill up with water, and that would be that.  So, I’m not a good candidate to try them, but I like the idea of building a greenhouse down instead of up.

Interestingly, it seems that a fair percentage of gardeners have taken to building garden beds above ground in raised beds – some of them up to four feet high.  I guess there are as many ways to garden as there are gardeners.

Right now, the foot or so of snow on our garden is being preserved by two straight weeks of below zero temperatures, so watching garden videos is about all I can do.  Watching, and planning, and remembering how the warm air feels. 

I am an introvert who seeks recognition, but only a little bit. I live in Southern Wisconsin and yes, I do enjoy cheese and a half-dozen or so beers each year. Somehow I found someone willing to marry me back in 1976, and so far so good. We have children and grandchildren and they are all really something.

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