Spring in the air, and up my nose
Been a long time since I updated! There hasn't been a ton of stuff happening; work's moving along well, Lu's progressing in school and almost 100% daytime potty trained (she's usually even dry through naps!), Chuck has filed his last bit of paperwork to get his NJ massage license. We've been busily tending to garden and outdoor improvements since late March (put off a bit by my getting about 3 colds/general illnesses in about 2 months), and hopefully we'll be able to reduce the basement puddling issue with our current big project, which is to improve drainage from the north side of the house, and direct the flow into the backyard, joining up with a downspout drainpipe and extending into the backyard into an underground gravel trench.
Chuck had to demolish a couple cement slabs first, so we acquired a sledgehammer and pry bar and he started smashing. Strangely, under a small triangular patch of cement that we can't imagine the purpose for, there were a bunch of old 1" diameter pipes, just laid parallel under the cement and on top of some gravel. The sidewalk pieces were tougher and took some more heavy lifting, but with our new garden cart we deposited the smashed-up pieces next to the garage for pickup later. Then we had to dig trenches for the piping, starting near the downspout. We had to hold off digging for a while due to rainy, wet conditions (our soil has a good deal of clay, and just turns to pudding when really wet), but last weekend (Memorial Day weekend) I was able to finish the north side trench by removing some hostas (newly acquired garden fork helped with that, immensely) and digging about a 10-12" deep trench between the sidewalk and house. I then lined the side near the house with 3.5 mil plastic sheeting, then landscape fabric, and a little course gravel; then I laid in a perforated drainpipe, a little more gravel, and wrapped the top with the remaining landscape fabric before filling it back in. I haven't filled it completely as I want - I want to built a slight slant away from the house, and then I need to replace the hostas, followed by a layer of some wood mulch that might help capture and absorb some moisture rather than letting it all into our mushy soil.
After that, I had to connect the pipe from the north side trench to the one extending under the sidewalk to connect to the segment that takes water from the downspout (which I extended with a proper piece of downspout and an elbow to slant the drainage down and away from the house - the old assembly let it drop to sidewalk level and used a cheap plastic downspout extender to let the water drain right over the sidewalk). I used sections cut from the triple-wall pipe to make this piece, and joined them with PVC fittings with caulking added. I would have used PVC and PVC adhesive, but the PVC piping didn't all quite fit, so I said hell with it and used some exterior clear caulk. A piece of expandable, flexible pipe attaches the trench pipe to the drain pipe, and the downspout connects to that with a wye fitting. After the wye is just a trench waiting to be filled with a little more pipe (solid to at least 10 feet from the house) and some gravel.
Most of this is partially backfilled already, but after the trench is completed, lined, and backfilled, the next step is to level out the ground where the sidewalk was, and lay in a paver sidewalk section. The previous cement slabs were poured straight onto the soil, which could explain why they were so shitty at that corner where so much moisture ended up. For the paver path, we're not laying in QUITE the ideal depth of foundation - online tutorials call for like 4 inches of paver base, then 2 inches of mansonry sand, then the pavers on top. I think we will have something more like 2-3 inches of base, 1.5-2 inches of mansonry sand, topped by pavers. To get the called-for depth, we'd have had to dig another 4 inches down, and then dug even deeper as the trench progressed. Given the tough digging our soil makes for, I made the executive decision to reduce the starting depth (near the house, where the sidewalk is) to make things just a tiny bit easier.
BESIDES that enormity, the garden's coming along - we bought some 5 for $10 plants at the Depot and got some sage, tomatoes, basil, and a jalapeno pepper plant, and I planted the leftover chard and kale seeds from last year (most were still good and are coming up nicely), plus some new beet seeds, spinach seeds, and snap pea seeds, the latter of which I'm fairly certain indicated the plant depth incorrectly - 1.5 inches? That's deep - only 1 seedling came up, and I had to plant more at a 1/2" depth 2 weeks later, which are fine. The thyme's flourishing, but the chives are dying off. Oh, and the mint came back LIKE CRAZY - I transplanted last year's 2 small plants to medium planters, and they are bushy and beautiful now. I also attempted to transplant some leeks from inside to outside, but we'll see if they catch on. I'm also trying to grow lemongrass from cuttings, but I haven't found a place to put them outside yet, so we'll see - I might just plop them in a container and leave them out once the heat of June is upon us.
I also am trying to get a lupin flower plant to grow next to the garage. There is a teeny, tiny plant there now, and I read that they don't always flower in the first year, so perhaps all I'll get this year is a small established plant. Still, it's very slowly coming along. Meanwhile the snapdragon seeds I sowed haven't done jack squat! Oh well. The sunflowers I grew last year self-sowed like mad, and the side garden was full of tiny sunflower seedlings. Right now, the biggest plant in the garden is a sunflower that was the first growing thing I spotted this year, unless you count the thyme, which I think was still technically dormant.
Weeding, I've decided, is a main task this year. Last year I slacked on weeding, and this year it shows in how many baby weeds I'm pulling. I hope if I work at it this year, then next year will be a little less weed-intense. It probably didn'y help that I put some weeds in the compost pile, which probably didn't get hot enough to kill the seeds. I won't do THAT this year either. THe pile certainly wasn't hot enough to kill pumpkin seeds, as the garden (to which I added compost) also started showing a bunch of pumpkin seedlings as of April's end. I put some of them into little plantings I hid on the work campus in the wild, weedy sections along the "Fitness Path." I think last week's dry weather and my forgetting to water them killed them off, though. :(
Aside from all that, I got sick again last week - I think I caught a small cold Lucia had come home with - and I'm still fighting some bizarre sinus bug. I'm utterly unused to having this kind of sinus pressure. Hoping it's not something too serious, but I suppose if it doesn't go away, it's antibiotics time.
Chuck had to demolish a couple cement slabs first, so we acquired a sledgehammer and pry bar and he started smashing. Strangely, under a small triangular patch of cement that we can't imagine the purpose for, there were a bunch of old 1" diameter pipes, just laid parallel under the cement and on top of some gravel. The sidewalk pieces were tougher and took some more heavy lifting, but with our new garden cart we deposited the smashed-up pieces next to the garage for pickup later. Then we had to dig trenches for the piping, starting near the downspout. We had to hold off digging for a while due to rainy, wet conditions (our soil has a good deal of clay, and just turns to pudding when really wet), but last weekend (Memorial Day weekend) I was able to finish the north side trench by removing some hostas (newly acquired garden fork helped with that, immensely) and digging about a 10-12" deep trench between the sidewalk and house. I then lined the side near the house with 3.5 mil plastic sheeting, then landscape fabric, and a little course gravel; then I laid in a perforated drainpipe, a little more gravel, and wrapped the top with the remaining landscape fabric before filling it back in. I haven't filled it completely as I want - I want to built a slight slant away from the house, and then I need to replace the hostas, followed by a layer of some wood mulch that might help capture and absorb some moisture rather than letting it all into our mushy soil.
After that, I had to connect the pipe from the north side trench to the one extending under the sidewalk to connect to the segment that takes water from the downspout (which I extended with a proper piece of downspout and an elbow to slant the drainage down and away from the house - the old assembly let it drop to sidewalk level and used a cheap plastic downspout extender to let the water drain right over the sidewalk). I used sections cut from the triple-wall pipe to make this piece, and joined them with PVC fittings with caulking added. I would have used PVC and PVC adhesive, but the PVC piping didn't all quite fit, so I said hell with it and used some exterior clear caulk. A piece of expandable, flexible pipe attaches the trench pipe to the drain pipe, and the downspout connects to that with a wye fitting. After the wye is just a trench waiting to be filled with a little more pipe (solid to at least 10 feet from the house) and some gravel.
Most of this is partially backfilled already, but after the trench is completed, lined, and backfilled, the next step is to level out the ground where the sidewalk was, and lay in a paver sidewalk section. The previous cement slabs were poured straight onto the soil, which could explain why they were so shitty at that corner where so much moisture ended up. For the paver path, we're not laying in QUITE the ideal depth of foundation - online tutorials call for like 4 inches of paver base, then 2 inches of mansonry sand, then the pavers on top. I think we will have something more like 2-3 inches of base, 1.5-2 inches of mansonry sand, topped by pavers. To get the called-for depth, we'd have had to dig another 4 inches down, and then dug even deeper as the trench progressed. Given the tough digging our soil makes for, I made the executive decision to reduce the starting depth (near the house, where the sidewalk is) to make things just a tiny bit easier.
BESIDES that enormity, the garden's coming along - we bought some 5 for $10 plants at the Depot and got some sage, tomatoes, basil, and a jalapeno pepper plant, and I planted the leftover chard and kale seeds from last year (most were still good and are coming up nicely), plus some new beet seeds, spinach seeds, and snap pea seeds, the latter of which I'm fairly certain indicated the plant depth incorrectly - 1.5 inches? That's deep - only 1 seedling came up, and I had to plant more at a 1/2" depth 2 weeks later, which are fine. The thyme's flourishing, but the chives are dying off. Oh, and the mint came back LIKE CRAZY - I transplanted last year's 2 small plants to medium planters, and they are bushy and beautiful now. I also attempted to transplant some leeks from inside to outside, but we'll see if they catch on. I'm also trying to grow lemongrass from cuttings, but I haven't found a place to put them outside yet, so we'll see - I might just plop them in a container and leave them out once the heat of June is upon us.
I also am trying to get a lupin flower plant to grow next to the garage. There is a teeny, tiny plant there now, and I read that they don't always flower in the first year, so perhaps all I'll get this year is a small established plant. Still, it's very slowly coming along. Meanwhile the snapdragon seeds I sowed haven't done jack squat! Oh well. The sunflowers I grew last year self-sowed like mad, and the side garden was full of tiny sunflower seedlings. Right now, the biggest plant in the garden is a sunflower that was the first growing thing I spotted this year, unless you count the thyme, which I think was still technically dormant.
Weeding, I've decided, is a main task this year. Last year I slacked on weeding, and this year it shows in how many baby weeds I'm pulling. I hope if I work at it this year, then next year will be a little less weed-intense. It probably didn'y help that I put some weeds in the compost pile, which probably didn't get hot enough to kill the seeds. I won't do THAT this year either. THe pile certainly wasn't hot enough to kill pumpkin seeds, as the garden (to which I added compost) also started showing a bunch of pumpkin seedlings as of April's end. I put some of them into little plantings I hid on the work campus in the wild, weedy sections along the "Fitness Path." I think last week's dry weather and my forgetting to water them killed them off, though. :(
Aside from all that, I got sick again last week - I think I caught a small cold Lucia had come home with - and I'm still fighting some bizarre sinus bug. I'm utterly unused to having this kind of sinus pressure. Hoping it's not something too serious, but I suppose if it doesn't go away, it's antibiotics time.