A bit more progress on the garden today; my daughters used some pieces of the trees that were taken down to edge the area we mulched yesterday.
The North end was left alone, since we won’t be going into there much at all, and the South edges were left open a path between the raspberries and the future garden.
The beauty of using these logs is that they are big enough to made an adequate “wall”, but will be easy to move away again, when that time comes.
One of my daughters tried to use a hoe to level some areas, so the logs wouldn’t be more level. The ground is so hard, it just bounced off the dirt!
We’ve broken down and removed the straw bale we got for mulch last year.
It’s amazing just how much material is packed into a round bale.
The girls continued taking wheel barrows of straw to the garden until the core was small enough to tip over and roll away.
There was still plenty left behind, of course.
Despite rolling against the grain, it still left a trail, all the way to the garden. :-D
Note in the above photo, how wide the mulched area in the garden is. We’ve already widened it on one side a bit, since we last worked on it.
Once in place, the core could simply be unrolled, leaving behind a thick enough layer that it only needed to be tamped down in places.
You can really see the difference between what was the bottom of the bale and the top; the part that was touching the ground is still tightly wrapped, and already starting to decompose, while the top is much looser, as it had room to spread while we took layers off to cover the septic tank and mulch the old kitchen garden.
This is where the bale sat all winter. When it was first moved, and my daughter was raking up what was left behind to haul away, she noticed lots of worms. When I was transplanting the raspberries, I noticed plenty of worms, too. This is a good sign!
This area behind the house is very spotty as far as how the grass is going, with the area closest to the house having almost no grass at all. So we’re not too worried about the grass that was under the bale; we’ll need to find some shade hardy grass seed for the area, anyhow.
And here we have the mulched garden area for next year. In the foreground, to the left, is a big gooseberry bush that I hope will actually produce some berries this year. Next to it is a chokecherry, then where the raspberries were transplanted, a crab apple tree, and the compost. Which, I discovered as I tried to turn it, was used for garbage at some point, as I found pieces of food tray foam and the remains of a plastic tray that held transplants. Plus, lots of branches, still. This is where a pile of pruned branches and cut back trees were piled, then moved to the middle of the garden, before we moved here. The plan had been to burn them – yes, even when it was right on the compost pile, under that apple tree! – but we broke it down and moved it manually, last spring. We’ll have fire pit fuel for a long time, just from that one pile!
The next steps for the mulched garden area is to “frame” it with some of those logs we have from getting the trees cleared. The idea is to keep the straw from being dragged around with our feet as we work in it. Other material will be added to it, to build up the layers and improve that rock-hard soil. Covering it all with landscape cloth to prevent the grass and weeds from growing through the mulch would be good, if we can get enough to cover the whole area.
We’re getting a pretty decent sized garden out of this! Obviously, nothing close to what it was before, but we can amend and re-claim sections of it, little by little, over the years, while planning out where we want to put more permanent plantings.
Today, I continued my spring clean up around the yard. Now that we have yard equipment in the side of the garage we’d stored the foam insulation from around the house last summer, this year I’ve put them into the barn for storage.
I’d love to empty that barn so we can actually use it.
All in good time!
For now, I went back to the jasmine bed, mulched it with straw and began saturating the mulch with water. Though we did get rain recently, it wasn’t enough and everything is still bone dry.
While the hose was running there, I decided to move the unused bird bath from beside the storage house to the flower bed by the bird feeder. I found a block to use as a foundation and used a hoe to dig down and level a spot for it, first. Once the bird bath was in place, I moved the bird feeder stand to its summer location. Over the next month or so, the flowers should hide at least part of the bases.
That bird bath needs a thorough scrubbing and re-painting. We shall see if that becomes a job for this year, or next. Or maybe we’ll get a new one.
I’m hoping the water is far enough away from the platform feeder that falling seeds will not become a problem. When the lilac beside it is in full leaf, it should provide some shade. This should slowly become a nice little bird garden, I hope. :-)
The birds were quick to come back to the feeding station, but I haven’t seen them checking out the water, yet.
I also cleared out the bricks that I took out when rebuilding the jasmine bed. I have decided what I will be using them for.
This is the window to the old part basement, where we used to throw logs in for the wood burning furnace. The roof that keeps precipitation from leaking into the basement is on a hinge, but I haven’t decided on how I will get it to stay all the way up while I work. If I really need to, I can also remove it until the job is done. The cat kibble is under there to keep it out of the weather. There are chunks of brick and blown in leaves, but otherwise I think it’s just dirt. The “retaining walls” built up on the sides are slowly getting unstable.
The plan is to clear all that out and redo it with a brick “floor” under the window. Which will also be a good time to get the foam insulation out of the opening and put the metal mesh window over it for the summer. The wood frame for that is rotting, though, so I hope to scrounge up the materials to redo that as well.
For now, I’ve just brought over the bricks and filled the wheel barrow with water. Partly to get rid of any dirt and whatnot stuck to them, but also to wash away any ants or other leggy critters that might get transferred over with the bricks. I’d seen some tiny red ants when I dug the bricks out, and some were still there when I moved them to the wheel barrow, so I want to make sure to get rid of those or any eggs that might be attached. I might not get back to this until tomorrow, though. It’s already gotten very hot out there – we are at 23C right now – and this area is in full sun.
That reminds me. Time to check on the kitties in the sun room again!
I was able to tackle two areas in the East yard today. The first was planned; I decided to leave the remains of the wood chip pile where it was, and spread it out along Northwest corner of the spruce grove.
Some of the pile got moved to the cross, as the pile at the other end didn’t have enough chips to extend that far. This will make mowing around this corner easier. Eventually, I will be clearing further into this area, but that will have its own natural mulch of leaves and spruce needles.
This side is where they chipped the branches from the 2 big maples directly onto the ground. There is more cleanup needed here, plus that dead tree will need to come down at some point, so I wasn’t too particular about how much this area was spread out.
I have some thoughts about that dead spruce tree. I could have it cut flush with the ground. I could have the stump leveled at about a foot and a half high and use it as a seat, or put boards across it to turn it into a bench. I could have it cut a bit higher and put a table top on it, then add benches or seats around it. Or I could have it cut to a couple of feet, hollow it out and turn it into a planter.
Feel free to let me know what you think about these ideas in the comments. :-)
Once that was done, I finally got around to removing the foam insulation we put around the house in the fall. That got me eyeballing this odd little flower bed my mother made where she had transplanted a jasmine.
This is what it looked like after removing the foam insulation; I had tossed the little plastic fence things in there, just to get them out of the way.
It’s falling apart and, when I try to water the jasmine by the steps, the water just runs downhill, past that piece of pressure treated wood and the miscellaneous pieces of brick. I had a couple of other pieces of pressure treated wood, as well as other bricks. I figured I could use both to build up a little retaining wall, bricks as a foundation for the wood, then more bricks on the wood to create a higher wall.
The first thing to do, of course, is take out the bricks that were already there.
From where I was pulling things out, I get the impression that a bed was built up around the jasmine by the stairs when it was transplanted, and then it was extended when the second plant (I am not sure if it’s another jasmine; I don’t think so) was added.
I wanted a rectangular bed, since I was using the pieces of wood for walls, so I started digging it out to create level trenches to put them in.
I kept finding more bricks!
Using one of the pieces of wood as a guide, I began putting bricks into the trench as a foundation, leveling them off by eye. This is not intended to be permanent, so I’m not too worried about getting anything exact, but it will be there a few years, I’m sure, so I still want to get it solid.
After reaching the steps, I discovered a bit of a problem. Even using a block of concrete that was already there, the length of the bed was greater than the combined length of the wood I was using. I did have another piece that turned out to be just wide enough to fit, but…
Yeeeeaaaahhhh…
No.
I mean, I could cut it to size with a chainsaw (now that I have one that works), but it’s quite rotten and…. nah. Not happy with it.
So I moved the end in a few inches, instead.
Once the brick foundation and wood pieces were in place, I used the soil I’d taken out to fill in the gaps.
Once that was done and stamped down, I realized I didn’t need to make it any higher.
I will likely need to bring in more soil for the outside of the bed, to tamp down and make sure the pieces of wood don’t just fall off their brick foundation. That can be done little by little, as needed, over the summer. I will also be mulching it with straw, when I start working on the bale.
So I now have to figure out what to do with the bricks. :-)
Today, we got the second area in the south yard mulched with wood chips. It’s not as long as the first one done, so it was faster.
It was also faster because I changed equipment.
Among the things that disappeared from here before we moved in were things like shovels and spades – the stuff that didn’t get taken are almost all broken in some way. Yesterday, we made do with snow shovels to load up the wheel barrows. It was a pain in the butt, but they did the job.
Today, I dug out a spade I’d found last year. It’s broken, of course, but just the handle on the top. I was able to use the sleeve of my sweatshirt to protect my hand while using it, and things went much easier.
Here is how the bed looked before.
This is the largest of my mother’s white lilacs, at the West end of the bed, and where I cleaned out a big pile of horse droppings in between all those stems. I’ve never been able to figure out how that happened. I just can’t see a horse backing its hind end right into the bush and taking a dump. :-D
This is where we had cleared out the remains of some fencing that had been used as a trellis for vines. I’m guessing this was done before my mother discovered that Virginia creeper is so invasive! Hopefully, the mulch will prevent it from growing back.
The dirt patch by the tire around the tree is a favourite place for the outside cats to roll around. :-D
Here is how it looks now.
Alas, the cats have lost their rolling spot. ;-)
A lot of the wood chips were used for this, but there is more left than I expected.
I’m debating whether to use it on a nearby flower bed, or just spread it all out, right where it is.
For the amount that’s there, I’m leaning towards spreading it out where it is.
While doing my rounds this morning, I took some pictures at the logs from the two maples that were taken down. Check this out.
You can see how the ant-damaged, rotten core is slightly pushed in. I was curious to see just how loose it was.
The answer is:
Completely.
There were a couple of pieces like this, where I could pull the core right out!
Have I mentioned what a relief it is to finally have these trees down?
Today we were able to head out and do some more aggressive yard work, and I am happy as a clam!
I decided to start on an area in the South yard that we had already started to mulch with leaves in the fall.
Here are the before pictures.
This is the bed that runs between the people gate and the vehicle gate.
I even considered mulching all the way to the fence, as it’s difficult to mow in there, but decided against it for now.
My mother planted some bright yellow flowers in here that self-seed. They did rather well last year, but I was pulling a lot of Virginia creeper out of it, near the Chinese elm. Also, being self seeding, the flowers are sort of spreading in an uncontrolled way.
Here is what it looks like now.
On this end, my mother’s yellow flowers did rather poorly. The Korean lilac shaded it too much, blocking both sun and what little rain we had. It was being taken over by crab grass.
I’m pretty sure that maple is self seeded.
I could see the flowers were already starting to come up, and I think they will find their way through the mulch. If they can do that, however, the Virginia creeper will do so, just as enthusiastically. With the mulch in place, they should be easier to pull up.
We put a big dent in the pile of wood chips in the process! This was before…
This is what it looks like now.
The next area I plan to use these on is on the other side of the sidewalk, between another Chinese elm and the willow that got trimmed. There are white lilacs there that I’d cleaned up around and pruned last year; while there is some kind of greenery growing near the base of the Chinese elm, there were no other flowers or anything. We should be able to finish off the pile of chips in that area. Anything left on the ground where the pile is now will be raked out as mulch, right where it is.
I also got an after picture of the maples removed from overhanging the roof. This is the before photo I had posted previously…
This is what it looks like, now.
That one tree in there that’s leaning waaayyyy over is just funny!
I’m hoping to get that junk around that old shed hauled out of the yard this summer. First, though, we need to get the straw bale used up. It’s rather in the way, where it is now.
I’m so happy to be able to get out and start on all this again! :-D
We had a very foggy morning today, and there was still fog when I went out to do my rounds. I decided to see if I could get some good pictures from behind the barn, and ended up checking things out further. I have not actually gone done this way, this far, since we moved here, so much of what I was seeing was new to me.
The first thing I stopped to check out was some fencing around trees. There used to be a pig pen and a manure pile in the area. I can see that the fencing went around the trees, but I am unsure of why. It was done long ago, and much of it has fallen.
Today, I finally went through the yard to pick up the winter’s fallen branches.
I got three wheel barrows full. One of them was just branches from under the willow tree in the south yard. Another was almost entirely from the ancient willow in the maple grove.
The Re-Farmer 