We'll Figure It Out By The Time We're Done

 We've had this old park bench for years.  We don't often sit in it, we just use it as garden art.  It has been in numerous spots in the landscape and has been sitting here at the end of the porch filling space since the Lilac Tree died and had to be removed.  

It makes sort of a nice backdrop for the flowers, but its sitting days were over because the wood was so rotten.  For the past couple of years I just set things on it, like a garden tool so I didn't forget to put it back etc.  My husband kept threatening to throw it out.  It wasn't very useful, but it would leave a big empty space....  I had sort of made up my mind that I would replace it with an inexpensive metal bench from a big box store.  One that wouldn't rot.  Ever.  But that seemed like the lazy way out, not to mention wasteful and I couldn't find anything I liked anyway.  Or at least nothing inexpensive (this one cost $7 at a yard sale).  

This spring, the seat board that the side-to-side stabilizer braces were screwed into broke loose.  It would no longer even stand up straight.  It leaned like the tower of Pisa.  Moving it to mulch or weed around it was like trying to relocated a fifty pound slinky.  Something was going to have to be done.  A decision made.  Action taken.  One day my husband must have got some inspiration from somewhere because, out of the blue, he asked me "do you want to help me tear apart that bench?".  Yup.  I do.  So, being of the mind set that if we know how to do it and have the tools and supplies, then we should do it.  We decided to renovate it.  And that is how we get ourselves into these little predicaments. 

We tore it apart, wire brushed and painted the ends, and my husband dug around in the scrap lumber pile until he found enough suitable black walnut boards leftover from another project to rip down to the right size.  All that sounds so easy but it's time consuming.  It didn't cost us anything but elbow grease.  And I suppose the scrubbing and the ripping and the sanding and the sealing was easy compared to putting that bugger back together.  The boards were measured and cut to length and precisely drilled so that we could just bolt it back together again.  But apparently, at the bench factory, either the wood is drilled to fit each hole in the iron channel, or they just made the holes really big to allow for adjustment.  Hard to say.  Whatever proper assembly procedure there is was eluding us.  After some trial and error we found that we had to start at the front and place each slat in order.  The thing acted like it was ticklish and kept trying to squirm out of alignment.  And we couldn't bolt the last few slats in until we had all of them in the channel.  Otherwise the last one wouldn't go in at all.  This was one of those projects that, as my husband likes to say, by the time we figure out how to do it right it will be all over.

But it sure looks nice, and it is STURDY.  I am so used to it being all wibbly-wobbly that I almost don't know what to do.    I can sit on it without getting filthy, or falling through, or collapsing it like a deck of cards.

It makes much better garden art now.  It almost looks like fine furniture.

Rustic was fine, but glossy is better.  It seems to say "come and have a seat.  Enjoy the garden."

I guess the hassle was worth it after all.

The Grape Arbor

 We have spent the past few days constructing a grape arbor.  We did a little each day.  Digging the holes was the hard part.  We got about 30" down and at that point we hit the shale ledge that runs under most of our yard.  And that's as far as you go.  Even with an auger on a tractor.  You get to the ledge and smoke rolls out of the hole, but no soil.

Day two we set the posts, perfectly plumb, all the same height, and in a perfect line.  Then we tied them together with a 2x6 board along the top that will help stop the posts from pulling towards the center.

Because the cables are under tension.  We put turnbuckles on the end so the cables can be tightened.

Then I spread shredded bark mulch on the soil to keep the roots cool, retain moisture, and discourage weeds.  That makes things look nice and tidy, and the grape vines will be fine with that.

One vine has put on some nice growth.  The other vine, which was sending up growth from below the soil line.... I finally dug it up, rinsed it, scrubbed it and determined that the growth was coming from the root stock, not the variety that was grafted on top.  Which was not what I wanted.  So I replaced it.  I got another Himrod white seedless so both vines are now the same variety.  I kept it in the cold frame for a week, and it has begun to break dormancy above the graft line so I planted it out and we are on our way.

The first vine, which was planted the end of March, is doing well.  I am looking forward to pruning and training it.  It is putting out three shoots.  Two will go along the lower cable and the middle one will be trained up to the next level.

The Bushel and Berry Raspberry Shortcake plant that I potted up last spring is putting out a few little berries.  The plant itself is quite healthy so I am pleased that this experiment it working out.  It just takes time.

It's the Great Pumpkin [Patch] Charlie Brown

 Last year I planted six pumpkin seeds in a far corner of the raised beds, got six pumpkin vines they produced six nice sized pumpkins.  This year, my husband said, since we have all of this room, why not just plant them in the field?  So we asked our friend to bring his tiller up and till a space for them.  We will reimburse him in pumpkins.

This reminded me why we converted to raised beds.

When the soggy clay mixes with the chopped vegetation, you get sticky cob with which to build a house.  We tried raking it, but there was no raking.  We ended up waiting for a dryish day and stomping it flat with our feet to the point where we felt we could get the small tractor with the turf tires on it.  After we stomped it, drove over it, then rolled it, it was manageable again.  I just wanted it flat enough to put landscape cloth over without creating puddles.  If we had left the vegetation untilled, it would have grown under the mat and lifted it.  Ask me how I know.

We have a large roll of road stabilization mat that goes under a gravel base when you want to create a driveway on soft ground.  We can reuse this later.  We rolled out two fifty foot lengths, leaving a 10" gap down the center and tacked it down with large spikes and washers.  Then I planted my pumpkin seeds that I have saved from last year's pumpkins.  Those pumpkins were grown from seeds I saved from a store bought pumpkin the year before.  I think I planted about 78 seeds.  Today when I watered I counted 76 sprouted plants.

I wanted to protect the seeds from squirrels and chipmunks and racoon.  Now that I have sprouts I need to protect those from the crows and ravens.  After that, I will want to protect the small plants from deer.

Once they get about a foot high, they are on their own.  Deer shouldn't be too interested in fuzzy, prickly pumpkin vines.  I plan to train the vines across the twelve foot expanse in either direction.  They should like the warmth of the soil under the black mat, and I won't have to worry about weeds making a mess and competing for water.

Since we will be able to reuse the mat and the seeds were saved, the project is virtually zero cost.   Now I just need them to grow.

Past Project Update: The Palisade Garden Bed

 Here is an updated view of the garden bed we carved out of the edge of the thicket  last July.  It contains grasses divided from various areas of the landscape and the myrtle ground cover that was already there and moved aside during excavation.  Next year I will try to add some color and different textures but they will have to be very deer resistant plants.

Today

Completion Last Year

Below is the original clump of Flame Grass that the majority of the grass was divided from.  As you can see, it needs to be divided again.  It has gotten unruly and flattened out in the last rain.

A view along the back line of grasses.

A Johnson Perennial Geranium divided out of the Creek Bed Garden spills out of my PaPaw's hog boiler.

A horse-drawn plow from the neighboring farm.

Before

After

Below is one of the Foxtrot grasses divided in March.

And this is one of the Little Bunny grasses I divided the end of June.

Dahlia of the Day: My Forever

When You're Hot You're Hot

 Is it ever too hot to do yard work?  Apparently not.  Remember back in April when we opened up our septic to pump the tank?  Well, this spring was so wet, and the ground was so saturated, that we began to be concerned about the slow percolation in our septic field.  The one we had was a closed system designed for a two bedroom house.  There was no water outlet.  If the ground was saturated, as it certainly was, water just wasn't going to go anywhere very fast.  When we had this system put in back in 2011, the septic field was surrounded by woods., and there really wasn't any other option than a closed system that size.  Then in 2021 we removed most of the woods.  And now, we had easy access and elevation to drain a sand filter down to the road ditch.

So we dug up the yard.  Because, if you have ever had a septic system back up into your house, you will know that there is just about no amount of money that is worth taking that chance.

Now we have a big, beautiful sand filter that is permitted for three bedrooms, but actually big enough for four.  If anything catastrophic ever happened to this house, we would not rebuild it this small.  It is also a good selling point if the next owners ever wanted to add on.  

The filter drains down through where those trees were to the road ditch so it should never back up just because of saturation. We can do as much laundry as we want.  And boy, do we do laundry!  On days like this it is best just to undress straight into the washing machine.

After the excavator left, my husband spent several days with first a box scraper, then a york rake, getting the whole area graded and smoothed down.  Yesterday, we happened to find a nearby source of good topsoil that we needed to reseed the lawn over the sand filter.  The best time to use topsoil is when it is freshly dumped.  You don't want it to be rained on if you want to be able to spread it smoothly.  So, around noon, we began to repair the lawn.

Luckily, when we started, we were working towards shade.  And we had shade and a nice breeze to sit and cool down in.  Because the official temperature was 94F but both of my outdoor thermometers said 100F.  It took us about four hours.  We had to use the smaller tractor because one end of the filter is still a little like walking on a water bed, and the big tractor would have left deeper ruts.  Now we need to spread seed and hay so we can take advantage of upcoming rain and get some grass growing.

Below is a shot of our second family of Eastern Bluebirds at breakfast time.

ME FIRST!

Today In Pictures

 

A New Septic Sand Filter

Baby Snapping Turtle just passing through
Initially met him on the garden shed steps... eye to eye.
Had to come back and take a picture to prove it.  They're cute at this stage

Burning the spring brush pile between downpours
Including the top of that tree that fell in December

Golf Ball sized hail
And this had been melting for 10 minutes
Freaky lightening and tornado warnings

An inch of rain in 20 minutes
This was after half an hour.  the water was a runnin'

Time to hit the shower

Stick a fork in me I'm done

Spring Property Maintenance

 We have gotten a a lot of rain from these storms sweeping across the country.  I can't really walk across the back lawn.  The rest of the lawns are OK, but it stopped us from tackling any edging and mulching. The next early spring project on my To Do list is to remove the light blue Siberian irises from the well head...

Not a good day for digging.  But an excellent spot for Siberian Irises

... and replace them with some dark Caesar's Brother irises from the sidewalk area we are reworking. 

This nice clump of Irises are no longer where I want them

That project is going to have to wait, but in spring there is always another project to do.  We brought in a few yards of topsoil for repairing spots in the lawn.  We had it dumped up in the area where we took down all those trees and where we are gradually adding grass.  Rather than spend a lot of money on topsoil and grass seed we opted for the farmer's version of lawn repair.  We put down four bales of hay.  There is a lot of orchard grass seed in this hay and we are quite happy to have orchard grass up here.  After we get done using the pile of topsoil for other areas, whatever is left can be spread right there on the gravel and clay spot we dumped it on and covered with hay.

The first part of lawn repair will be filling in these holes.  Its time again for regular maintenance pumping out of the septic tank.  We uncovered the lids for the pumper and will fill the holes back in with fresh soil and plant grass seed.  They are just a little too big and deep to gracefully remove the sod in any way that we could piece it back together, but we could do that too.

Another post winter project - At the entrance to the big garage, we had a paver walkway that was crumbling.  We were tracking all kinds of grit and cement dust into the garage.  When we began to lift them, they completely disintegrated.

Then we had to decide on the easiest way to reconfigure the three that are still in good shape.  These pavers weigh 280 pounds each.  We use a lifter that the neighbor built for us so we can lift three foot pavers with the tractor.  There is a design quirk that makes it difficult to set pavers side by side, but without it there would be no way we could move them at all.

We decided on three in a row instead of a triangular configuration.

And then we started on the big project of the spring...

...removing the orange daylilies from the fence line.

This is hard work, but we need to do it while we still can to reduce the overall amount of work that these daylilies cause over the course of each year.  We got six sections dug out yesterday leaving nine more to go.  Then we will use the remainder of last year's mulch pile to fill in and level off the holes we leave.

Ad now news from the seed starting.  The teeny tiny Portulaca seedlings are putting out their first true leaves.  Portulaca has these weird, pointy, succulent leaves.  In the seedling stage, it takes a camera or a magnifying glass to see them!  They are so small!

And here is the sweet potato slip situation...