Electrification

how to install electricity

Thursday, April 24, 2008

48 degrees and overcast here on the hill this morning. The ground squooshes as you walk from all the rain that fell last night. It is uncommonly dark which is unusual for folks who have had 11 consecutive days of sun and temperatures at 65 or above. Karl the wonder dog enjoyed his morning walk and was not frightened by the smell of a fresh bear track which followed last night's rain.

A powerful thunderstorm arrived last night when I was finishing up my piece on big diggers. I had to close the computer down quickly. The light show lasted well over an hour so the part I was going to write on electrification waited in safety until now.

Most businesses need power to accomplish something. Electricity is one of those things like water in most of America. You turn on the switch and you expect water to flow or lights to pop on. Electricity can be expensive. When we arrived here in 1989 from Burlington, our monthly light bill was programed at $39 a month. Today it is at $115 and it gets reprogrammed quarterly. Yes, things have gotten more expensive. Just the same, we cannot run a business without electricity.

Last fall as people stopped at the new land to find out what we were doing, many suggested we go solar. I applaud that thinking but could not find one single person with the suggestion that had any experience, could tell me what they were talking about or could recommend an experienced user who could help. Solar power is interesting to me anyway because Vermont ranks third in the continental US for darkness. We have to look for the sun here so getting solar power without an elaborate system is a feat at times. The most experienced in the field put their panels/collectors on mechanized trackers that follow the sun and adjust the collectors to maximize aborption. Just thinking about the cost of that would deter most from looking further. In our case we need dependable energy for water pumps and sprayers and everything in between down to the telephone and computers. No solar for us yet! Plus I couldn't possibly live long enough to see a pay back.

Getting electric to a site is not difficult but it can be costly. In our case, the utilities were close by as they run along US Route 2. Except for one thing. They run on the opposite side of Route 2 so that required a new pole for $809 to get the power above and across the road to our land. Green Mountain Power is the vendor in this area and they are easy to work with as long as you have a couple bucks. They consented to place the meter on the pole which made it easier for us and the meter reader since this is a seasonal business right now.

I first met with the field rep, mapped out the pole location, and made like Robert Amundsen at the north and south poles and sunk a stake laying claim to the pole site. The only stipulation was the pole had to be planted by a truck that was stationed on US Route 2 itself. A stability/safety thing I think. Once the pole was planted were were ready to do our work. That's where the real cost began.


First I had Kevin trench from the pole to the new building site. That was a distance of 110 feet. The trench must be a minimum of 2 feet deep to meet electrical code but we went deeper because we are going to be running heavy equipment over the top. When digging any trenches, it's best to call Dig Safe first and have them come scan the area for underground wires or pipes. In this case I did not use this service because I knew the existing utilities were across Route 2. Just winging something like this and making a mistake is not prudent because if you dig up something that's not yours, you pay to have it fixed. Dig Safe is a free service paid for through the contractor consortium so there's no reason not to use it.

The other point to remember about trenching no matter where you are is that you just plain do not put a person in a deep trench without providing for his safety in case of cave ins. Many have said "I'll only be down there for a couple minutes.", and never lived to tell about it. Not many mind you, but one is too many.

We dug the trench and the electricians ( Rachel & Chris, B&B Electric from Plainfield) appeared ready to complete the underground installation. One of them started installing the meter socket on the pole while the other one laid out the PVC pipe, threaded a pull rope, got ready for the cable and built the ground fault protector. Basically you are installing plastic pipe in the ground to protect the electrical cable from water or intrusion and deterioration caused by frost heaving, rocks rubbing, etc. There's not much good to say about pulling electric entrance cable through PVC conduit. It's actual three big wires bound together, it's heavy and like a snake, it's never straight.

As soon as the meter socket was up, two ground rods were driven into the ground and connected six feet apart. Grounding is part of the electrical code. Copper prices make you scream but it has to happen and from a safety and system protection standpoint, there is no thought about the importance of grounding an electrical system. It has to happen.

On the opposite end of the run near where we will build the new sales area, I built a temporary structure to hold the breaker boxes while we build the building. I used two 4 x 4 posts 8 feet long and screwed on six pieces of 36" 5/4 pressure treated decking. That made a good area to mount the breaker box and the receptacles. When the building is built, all of the electrical components will be moved inside the building and the interior and exterior wiring will be wired into the breaker box.

When the wiring was completed we began to backfill the ditch a little, I installed my own PVC and wiring for our telephone system (no cell service in our area yet) and then we rolled out a banner of yellow plastic warning tape the length of the hole. This is so if anyone decides to start digging in that area, they will hit the tape first and be reminded to stop what they are doing before they fry themselves. Kevin came back in with his equipment and filled in the rest of the ditch. The following day Green Mountain Power stopped by and made the connection from the meter socket up the pole to their line and across to the transformer. Presto! Electricity, expensive installation, but done right forever!

Installing electricity to your business site is expensive. Doing it right the first time means you only pay once. I find contractors and power utilities helpful and know they want to do a good job too. In this case. we needed electricity. By doing an underground installation we have enhanced the value of our property while meeting a power need. Another exhausting job scratched off the list!


Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where the sun is trying to push between two big, dark clouds. Maybe, just maybe, we'll have some sunshine soon.

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm

Rain Drops and First Thaw

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Almost 7 PM here on the hill where we are anemometer-less but wish we had one. The local television news just announced the wind speeds at various Vermont towns and 55-60 mph was common. The wind continues with great ferocity here and a brief step outside with Karl the wonder dog scared both of us as a large maple tree bit the snow. That's apparently common tonight (the falling tree part) as Channel 3 reported the number of people without power. It includes 561 Green Mountain Power customers burning candles and kerosene lamps and looking for more flashlight batteries as are our friends at the Marshfield Inn. The outage extends to parts of East Montpelier and beyond. Green Mountain Power happens to be one of the better utilities when it comes to line maintenance and speedy repairs so hopefully everyone will be back to normal soon. January thaws are like this sometimes but this one is giving plenty to remember.

A week ago it was minus 15 degrees and blustery cold. Yesterday and today new records have been set and now rain and wind cut away at one of the nicest early snow packs we have seen in several years. Fifty degrees and pouring rain reminds me of mid June when our hostas are looking great. I have always enjoyed seeing the raindrops bead up on the big leaves of a Hosta 'Elegans' (above) but today the picture is only a memory.



As I sit here, letting my mind walk through the lower hosta gardens of summer, it's a calming journey. The garden I have created over the years within the walls of that old barn foundation is a peaceful place. It's easy there to pull up a rock and sit down for a few minutes to reflect on the world and enjoy the quiet.


As my mind skips through the greens and blues and whites and yellows, names come to mind. Jimmy Crack Corn, Feather Boa, Jewel of the Nile, Captain Kirk, Dick Ward, Robert Frost, Bobbie Sue, Blue Moon, Little Sunspot, Blue Jay, Olive Bailey Langdon, Yellow River, Popo, Venusta, Amber Tiara, Hacksaw, Risky Business, Royalty, Donahues Piecrust, Red October, Regal Rhubarb. There are hundreds of different hostas here and in the slide show that works through my mind.

These are some of my favorite plants and this garden is a favorite too. If winter cold begins to get to you and you aren't sold on hostas yet, take a look at the American Hosta Society site. If that shows promise try the Hosta Library Those two sites will take days to get through but if you still have some ambition, go to our Vermont Flower Farm site and try the links for
Building a Hosta Garden or Hostas A-K Those links should help you make a decision on how much you do or don't like hostas. For me there is no question......I can't buy enough!


Writing from the mountain where tomorrow's sunlight will make obvious all the rearranging tonight's winds have done.

Drive with care.

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener

Walkin', Tossin', Gatherin'

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

As I drove down Route 2 towards home and Marshfield tonight, my eye caught Gail's car and then Gail out in the daylilies, spade fork in hand, weeding the second of the 22 plots I got planted with daylilies. I slowed down way in advance of the turn because folks returning home after work are not always as cautious as they should be. I pulled up alongside our car and noticed Alex stretched back in the passenger seat reading his H.P. Lovecraft stories and recovering from his very unfavorable experience of weeding with Gail. Karl the wonder dog was no where to be seen which probably meant he was sound asleep when Gail and Alex left the house and it wasn't worth the trouble waking him.

Already it's been almost two months since I began transplanting daylilies. They look good for the time they have been in the ground and have set in quite well for the winter. Planting in the fall is a good thing but as you work into mid October in Vermont, you need to use care and watch the soil temperature fall. Below 50 degrees and I don't think it's prudent to transplant daylilies because that is a signal that temperatures will fall quickly and soon. This morning was our second hard freeze, this time 22 degrees. I suppose if you wanted to plant and mulch or plant in known micro climates it would be fine but for us, planting for the first time in an open field, caution is the word.

In addition, to a major planting effort, we have made other accomplishments. I have patched up the fence where moose have walked right through. This didn't please me either time but there is no stopping a moose. This time of year there is mating season to contend with when moose are on the move, a controlled moose season is under way, archery season for deer just ended and rifle season is beginning. This puts thousands of hunters into the woods causing moose and deer to move where they may not have gone before. The fence has done well for deer control but stopping moose was already a known factor. In the next couple weeks we'll start work on the gates to Route 2 and the last piece of fence along the Winooski River. I intentionally left that open after watching animal movement there last year. Observations found deer, bear, moose and coyote all using the same corridor.

I made contact with Green Mountain Power and know that the power pole will cost $1200. That is a spring project that I will schedule in February so we are locked in before things get busy for the power company. We also have agreed to a building which we will use for a "pack and ship, sales area, office, take-a-break, get-out-of-the-weather, store equipment, warm up/cool off room".


When we were thinking about buying a prefab building from The Carriage Shed near the VA Hospital in White River, we had a contractor doing a bathroom over here at the house. He's a great person and a super contractor and he knows his stuff. He said he was familiar with the product and he couldn't build the same thing much cheaper if at all. That made us look more seriously at options. This picture isn't what we'll be getting for about $9000 delivered but it should help you visualize where we're at.

We will have a 12 X 28 foot building with the run-in part on the right as this picture shows. "Run-in" is the open area set up in a horse barn style building for animals to come in out of the weather, eat, drink, sleep etc. That's where we'll do pack and ship for Internet sales and all local sales. On the left interior wall of that room will be a full wall and a traditional door and storm door. I'm planning the door where customers and visitors won't be trying to get in, looking for whatever customers and visitors always look for. When I think about how important this is, I always remember the time three years ago when I walked into our house and a lady was wandering around. I asked if I could help and she said she thought our house was a gift shop. Gail will surely be happy not to give up her house anymore.

So you have a more complete concept, the two barn doors pictured to the left of the run-in will be replaced by windows and on the left end there will be another window. I really wanted the four foot overhang shown in this picture but that was going to add another$3400 to the price. The building is built on pressure treated 6 X 6's and is delivered on a tilt bed /flat bed trailer so it can be placed where you want it. It's also moveable if it needs to be relocated. These are all positives to me so if the business for some reason failed, was disbanded, was sold, there would be many options for using the land without having to deal with a building. When I plan a business, I always have contingencies and I recommend any business owner think into the future as much as possible.

Once in place we'll have to install underground electric from the pole. I'll put in 200 amp service with a breaker box in the interior room and circuits for the water pump, general lighting, the computer and technology equipment, and a circuit for any cooking/refrigerating equipment.

During the summer we have had many, many curious visitors and a number of those asked if we had considered solar power. Although we have not studied solar, it is on our list of things to explore this winter. If any readers are knowledgeable about an application such as this one, we'd be pleased to hear your advice.

The building will have to be insulated and next summer it will have a pretty rustic look inside as there's too little time to get everything done to finished quality. We'll get it stained on the outside and I want to get gutters on both sides to get the rain away form the building. During the second year the rain water and water from the plant wash sinks will be diverted to an adjacent rain garden--but that's a story for another time. In the middle of a five acre field a 12 X 28 foot building will look small but it will serve as an energy warehouse for some fine gardens and a business of growing. Let us know if you have questions about the plan. Suggestions are just that "suggestions", but we always like to hear them.

After trying to get Alex to give up Lovecraft and get back to work, I scooted home to change and get back to help Gail. We worked until the sun was fading, picked up all the hose and irrigation equipment we no longer needed and headed home. For two people, we have accomplished a lot this summer while operating our nursery and with me going to work at a regular job every day. Gail has been great to juggle so many things and still keep the nursery and Internet business in operation. Passers-by encourage us to keep it up and about every day, like yesterday at 5:30 AM at the gas station, I met another person who introduced themselves and offered thanks and encouragement....thanks for keeping a piece of Vermont in agriculture.

When I returned home there was just enough time for a quick walk in the gardens. Fall is a time when I try to keep getting one more picture of our gardens filed away in my memory bank for winter. I'm one of those gardeners who can't keep from picking seed heads, tossing seeds around and trying to locate those flowers which just keep blooming. Seeds that I think have promise for next year might even end up in a Mason jar for dry storage. Last week I found another bloom of the daylily 'Miss Amelia'. This walk found me with a hand full of heuchera leaves, batchelors buttons, rose companion, dried astilbe scapes and rudbeckia and echinachea seed heads. The trollius are sparse compared to their summer offering but the fact that they rebloom now is enough for me.


If you have a chance during the next few weeks, pick a warm day and walk your gardens too. Walkin', tossin', and gatherin' are part of gardening.

From the mountain above Peacham Pond where small blocks of ice lay coldly on the ground near empty buckets no longer filled with warm colored flowers. The season "Fall" holds tight.

Gardening wishes;

George Africa
http://vermontflowerfarm.com
http://thevermontgardener.blogspot.com

A Year Has Passed

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Great good mornings to you from the mountain above Peacham Pond where the loons call, in competition with the harsh voices of two crows sitting in an adjacent white pine. It's 31 degrees and the dark clouds don't seem to be moving much. Yesterday was a good day to get some planting done because today is supposed to be wet with snow showers in higher elevations. We are at 1500 feet so I don't think we'll see the white stuff quite yet.

It's been almost a year since I decided to start this blog as an offshoot to The Vermont Gardener

Now at 3770 hits I guess I may have roped the interest of a few, although I know some subscribers have opted out. One person wrote me personally and said they liked the blog but thought there would be a lot more information on starting a nursery business. That was my plan and still is, but lacking a dependable day stretcher, there are fundamentals to building a business which have to be done. In a geographic area like Vermont, an outside business is at the mercy of the weather and that reprioritizes things for gardeners despite what they had planned.

For those still impatient with me, I want to cite a good resource which might help while you wait for me to pull things together. I've mentioned it before because I was going to write the same sort of book myself except that the task never elevated itself to the top of my "to-do" list. The book is titled So You Want To Start A Nursery written by Tony Avent of Plant Delights Nursery, Inc. What the book points out is that you need a well thought out plan and you need to follow it. Gail and I have a very good plan for moving our nursery and we are following it almost to the letter. What we don't have is a lot of spare capital so the "doing things yourself" part takes more time. Here are some examples.


Yesterday we scheduled the day to plant the western border garden. It is 408 feet long and I have prepared a ten foot width with the tractor mounted rototiller. For reference, the fence posts in the pictures are 30 feet apart. Half this width maintains high moisture because water feeds down the mountain across Route 2. The soil is clay loam but stones are almost nonexistent and save for the need for more organic material, it will grow plants well. Our plan was to plant things that complimented each other and could also handle full sun and high moisture.

We loaded the Chevy until it wouldn't hold any more plants and away we went. With a few minor changes, Gail's design worked well. I wanted to leave 18" along the grass so I could run the small Troy Built rototiller and keep the grass from encroaching. This entire area (previous to our purchase) was originally planted with White Dutch Clover to feed the deer and break up the clay. As we know, clover has a way of spreading and my plan was to keep it out of the gardens in subsequent years.

The transplanting went well until we got to the Astilboides tabularis and the Darmera. These plants had been in 1 gallon pots for two years and had expanded their root systems to the point they wouldn't come free of the pots without splitting them down the sides. 150-180 pots later we were finished but the "big pot problem" added another hour and a quarter to the project. Today we'll get back there and plant the corner with a variety of bee balms and hopefully



get started on a full season "yellow garden" with helenium, various rudbeckias, heliopsis and daylilies.

Monday night when Alex and I were returning from Burlington, the traffic halted at about the entrance to our property. A quarter mile down the road, a car had sheared off a power pole. Speed has a way of messing up your day if you're not careful but the accident reminded me I needed to call Green Mountain Power and get a price on a power pole. I called on Tuesday and found that I could mount the meter on the pole and the installation would cost $1200. The stipulation was that the company truck could set the pole from the highway. Although that's not a concern, I asked for a physical site inspection since the bank is steep there and the pole has to be high enough to match the pole on the opposite side of the road. The line has to be high enough to avoid the highest trucks.


The delivery and placement of stones for the daylily display garden almost two weeks ago was another positive accomplishment but it modified how many daylilies I could get into the ground before this week's temperatures dropped too low. With the stones in place, I had to spray the entire garden area with Round Up. 9000 square feet isn't that large in the world of plants but when you're spraying with a backpack sprayer it gets big real fast. Looking back on all the issues related to ground prep, I should have budgeted for a trailer for the tractor and a 50 gallon electric sprayer with a boom sprayer. Small business plans should not contain too many "should haves" but a few are not uncommon.

With the stone in place, Gail can start the actual garden design. She has been carrying around thoughts for some time but without the large stones in place, she was reluctant to proceed. That's just how Gail works. This week the design will take shape and we'll visit some nurseries and look at trees and shrubs on our list of possibilities. We'd like to get the trees planted before the snow arrives and that looks possible.

Growing a gardening business is an exciting job. A good plan and a pocket full of money help. Gail and I are the tortoises of the garden movement but in the end Vermont Flower Farm will have a nice new home and more than ever before, you'll want to visit.

Best wishes,

George
The Vermont Gardener
http://vermontflowerfarm.com
http://thevermontgardener.blogspot.com

Willows and Riparian Plantings

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Just after 6 AM and I already feel like I'm "behind" for the day. Arthritis has a way of slowing down even good gardeners and after helping plant 375 gallon pots yesterday, I can feel some unused muscles getting back into shape. My right hand has finger joints I can count by the degree of pain but after I get going here they'll loosen up and I'll be ready for another day of planting. I hope!

46 degrees here on the hill and probably colder down on the new property. I keep forgetting to buy a max-min thermometer to put down there so I can begin tracking the way the rise and fall of the Winooski River affects the temperature. There are good and bad points to having the river border part of the property. Its inherent beauty over weighs other points but the almost daily increase in water flow by about three feet is something I don't care for. Green Mountain Power owns a power plant on the Lower Cabot Road in Marshfield. Water from the watershed that includes Peacham Pond and the Marshfield Reservoir flow down along Route 2, up to the water tower and then down the hill through the pent stock to the power plant. Many afternoons after 2:30 the pent stock is opened and water rises rapidly. When that happens, more and more river bank is carried to Lake Champlain a little at a time. As you travel Route 2 and look towards the river, you notice oxbow after river oxbow washing out and it becomes clear how serious this is. The Friends of the Winooski River is sponsoring a guest speaker from Green Mountain Power May 9th and I'll be asking some questions about this problem. Here's the lecture info:

Hydropower on the Winooski River on May 9th at the Cabot Town Hall at 6:30 PM. Jon Soter, Manager of Power Production for Green Mountain Power will be the focus of the presentation on GMP's operations on the Winooski River. Jon will cover the company's overall operations and capacity. The presentation will also cover the historical development of hydropower as well as GMP's focus on other renewables such as windpower.


Regarding bank erosion I am going to do a little preventive work myself. When Gail went to the flower show in Essex earlier this year I asked her to buy me a couple bundles of pussy willows. There's always a booth that sells a large variety of different willows for spring home decoration. Few seem to know that if you stick them in water they'll root in short order and compound your investment if you have a place that needs planting. Gail came home with a bundle of yellow and a bundle of black willows which I gave a fresh cut to and placed in water. Willonw have an inherent chemical that makes them root easily. In fact many folks take willows and cut them in small pieces and throw them in a bucket of water with other harder-to-root items. The chemicals dissolve in the water and enhance rooting.

I took these pictures two weeks ago and at that time gave the whips another fresh cut and changed the water. The roots are twice this big now and are getting ready to put outside to harden off a little before planting. The yellow willows have thinner leaves than the native varities common to wet areas around Vermont. The black willows have interesting catkins.

The black willow bundle Gail purchased was a little more dehydrated than the yellow and have been slower to get started but this would not ordinarily be the case. Some catkins went into full bloom as soon as they hit the water. The raven feather I've included in the picture is only intended to show size as its 12" long. In another week or so I'll plant these along the river bank about 5 feet from the high water line. Just another way to keep Marshfield soil in Marshfield.


Have to get going here!

Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where a fine rain falls and loons call from the reservoir but receive no replies from their friends on Peacham. Can loons hear when they are underwater having breakfast?

George Africa
http://vermontflowerfarm.com
http://thevermontgardener.blogspot.com