dig your claws into the earth
State of the Yard, and also What I Did With My Weekend. Or Saturday, at least.
One of the big projects that's been sitting on the backburner is to fix my compost pile. A little backstory on this - When I moved into this house, I discovered there was already a little wooden closet-ish thing by the driveway that was being used as a compost container. Great! Composting is one of the things I was looking forward to with having my own house, so this was just fine. Over time and digging, I realized that this closet was probably NOT initially designed as a compost pile, because a) I kept finding bits of plastic bag amidst the dirt, and b) it had a wooden floor. Most likely it was a trash can closet.
Well, I care more about having a compost pile than having a trash can closet, so I decided to keep it as is. But compost piles are happiest when they are touching the ground. So the floor needed to go. But in order to get rid of the floor, everything on top needed to be emptied out. I generally do a semi-yearly toss-and-scoop of the thing, turning the fresh stuff into the dirt and spreading a layer over my gardens, but it's a big enough pile that I never use more than half of it. I had done a few buckets worth of clean out several weeks ago in prep, and decided to do the rest today.
So I dug out a bunch of the well-composted stuff into one of our large (37 gal) bins. But I didn't want to dump it on top of weeds, so then I weeded the herb garden and the vegetable garden (wasn't too bad, as I'd done more of that only a month ago). I spread that load of compost over both gardens, then finished emptying the rest of the pile into another half bin (bucket) of good dirt and a full bin of less composted stuff. I did that and also weeded about half of the strawberry patch by noon. Then it was xuth's turn to go in with his tools: tear out the hardwood floor, brace up the sides, and put a new front panel on. In the meanwhile (after lunch), I weeded the rest of the strawberries as well as the hosta and iris rows I have just starting by the sides of the house and yard.
After that, I was already dirty, and activation energy for yard work is so hard to come by, so I went ahead and did some more stuff: I shredded our old (now dried) xmas wreath onto the strawberries, picked up apples, did some more spot weeding, dug up most of a dead juniper bush, pulled a couple dead/floundering tomato plants, transplanted a couple sprightly volunteers into their spots, and staked or restaked a bunch others that were outgrowing their current trappings. Turns out that bindweed makes an excellent impromptu organic twine for tying plants to stakes. And I have so much that it's nearly always within arm's reach! For my last trick, I nagged the kids to mow the lawns. That might have been the hardest job.
Then I rewarded myself with a shower and some relaxing and later a lovely dinner out, then came back and realized it was about to rain and I didn't want the huge bin full of half-composted compost to get all soggy, so I quickly shoveled that back into the remodeled heap. I fully expect to be sore tomorrow, but right now I'm feeling pretty good.
Oh, and for the rest of the SOTY stuff:
The strawberries and blueberries pretty much never produced much of anything this year. Weird. The apples dropping are more sparse than previous years, but they're definitely progressing. The ones I saw today ranged between quarter-sized and, um, small apple-sized. Should be more next month!
I just got my first ripe tomatoes this past week, and two more today. Several more are green and growing well. Other things still growing include brussels sprouts, potatoes, zukes, jalopeno, and an eggplant. Chard has been feeding me well and I've so far mostly succeeded in keeping up with it and occasionally tricking the family into eating some. Cilantro all bolted and seeded, but I actually got around to planting a second batch and some of that is about edible. Oregano is trying to take over so I cut it back with a vengeance. Chives, basil, rosemary, and parsley are all happy and in use.
In flower news, the lilies had their heyday, finished up completely about a week or so ago, and are now browning and in decline. Another weekend will be to rake those patches out. Spirea is still in flower. The rose of sharon weed is up to about 10 feet tall now, but has pretty flowers so I don't want to cut it yet, even though it's not supposed to be there. I thought all my marigolds from A&T's wedding were all lost, but the third generation was stubborn and I ended up with 4 plants this year, which are now flowering. This winter I'll actually put in some effort to get seeds from them, I think.
One of the big projects that's been sitting on the backburner is to fix my compost pile. A little backstory on this - When I moved into this house, I discovered there was already a little wooden closet-ish thing by the driveway that was being used as a compost container. Great! Composting is one of the things I was looking forward to with having my own house, so this was just fine. Over time and digging, I realized that this closet was probably NOT initially designed as a compost pile, because a) I kept finding bits of plastic bag amidst the dirt, and b) it had a wooden floor. Most likely it was a trash can closet.
Well, I care more about having a compost pile than having a trash can closet, so I decided to keep it as is. But compost piles are happiest when they are touching the ground. So the floor needed to go. But in order to get rid of the floor, everything on top needed to be emptied out. I generally do a semi-yearly toss-and-scoop of the thing, turning the fresh stuff into the dirt and spreading a layer over my gardens, but it's a big enough pile that I never use more than half of it. I had done a few buckets worth of clean out several weeks ago in prep, and decided to do the rest today.
So I dug out a bunch of the well-composted stuff into one of our large (37 gal) bins. But I didn't want to dump it on top of weeds, so then I weeded the herb garden and the vegetable garden (wasn't too bad, as I'd done more of that only a month ago). I spread that load of compost over both gardens, then finished emptying the rest of the pile into another half bin (bucket) of good dirt and a full bin of less composted stuff. I did that and also weeded about half of the strawberry patch by noon. Then it was xuth's turn to go in with his tools: tear out the hardwood floor, brace up the sides, and put a new front panel on. In the meanwhile (after lunch), I weeded the rest of the strawberries as well as the hosta and iris rows I have just starting by the sides of the house and yard.
After that, I was already dirty, and activation energy for yard work is so hard to come by, so I went ahead and did some more stuff: I shredded our old (now dried) xmas wreath onto the strawberries, picked up apples, did some more spot weeding, dug up most of a dead juniper bush, pulled a couple dead/floundering tomato plants, transplanted a couple sprightly volunteers into their spots, and staked or restaked a bunch others that were outgrowing their current trappings. Turns out that bindweed makes an excellent impromptu organic twine for tying plants to stakes. And I have so much that it's nearly always within arm's reach! For my last trick, I nagged the kids to mow the lawns. That might have been the hardest job.
Then I rewarded myself with a shower and some relaxing and later a lovely dinner out, then came back and realized it was about to rain and I didn't want the huge bin full of half-composted compost to get all soggy, so I quickly shoveled that back into the remodeled heap. I fully expect to be sore tomorrow, but right now I'm feeling pretty good.
Oh, and for the rest of the SOTY stuff:
The strawberries and blueberries pretty much never produced much of anything this year. Weird. The apples dropping are more sparse than previous years, but they're definitely progressing. The ones I saw today ranged between quarter-sized and, um, small apple-sized. Should be more next month!
I just got my first ripe tomatoes this past week, and two more today. Several more are green and growing well. Other things still growing include brussels sprouts, potatoes, zukes, jalopeno, and an eggplant. Chard has been feeding me well and I've so far mostly succeeded in keeping up with it and occasionally tricking the family into eating some. Cilantro all bolted and seeded, but I actually got around to planting a second batch and some of that is about edible. Oregano is trying to take over so I cut it back with a vengeance. Chives, basil, rosemary, and parsley are all happy and in use.
In flower news, the lilies had their heyday, finished up completely about a week or so ago, and are now browning and in decline. Another weekend will be to rake those patches out. Spirea is still in flower. The rose of sharon weed is up to about 10 feet tall now, but has pretty flowers so I don't want to cut it yet, even though it's not supposed to be there. I thought all my marigolds from A&T's wedding were all lost, but the third generation was stubborn and I ended up with 4 plants this year, which are now flowering. This winter I'll actually put in some effort to get seeds from them, I think.