Saturday, May 19, 2018
Saturday Musings Part II
New plan of attack to keep the cats out of the vegetable beds - this better work.
And I don't know what's going on with the little pond. Either I've put a hole in the liner, or the water is evaporating because I don't have floating plants in there yet. At any rate, it's nearly empty, and I've refilled it twice. I won't give up on it until I've put the floaters in and see if that makes a difference. I have a few more weeks before it'll be warm enough for that, so it's a hurry up and wait situation.
Saturday Musings
Apparently last year was a banner season for maple trees, and this spring everyone I know is absolutely infested with baby maples. In the gardens, suffocating lawns, springing up between cracks in the cobblestones. My property was not spared - I just spent two hours weeding my holding bed and 95% of what was plucked out were tiny maple trees. One bed down, a bunch more to go. But it does look better, and I'm finding that plants I had divided and moved around last year have survived the winter and are looking healthy.
If finances allow, I'm hoping to re-mulch this bed. It's been three years and it desperately needs it. A gardening friend really loves cocoa mulch, but I understand it can be dangerous to dogs and cats. If I try it, I'll only use it on the beds in the front yard, where the cats aren't allowed. It's pretty expensive compared to good old bark mulch, so that may factor into my decision.
I met with a realtor to begin the process of selling my house, so I do want everything to look nice. Fingers crossed that I can get a decent price for the place, because if not, I'm stuck here. It's not a horrible fate, but the commute to work, high property taxes, and expenses of keeping an older, massive house maintained are beginning to wear on me, physically and financially. I need a smaller house where I can focus on the land more than the buildings. It's all about the outside for me!
This weekend Mom and I are headed to the Freyburg Home and Garden Show, which should be fun. We've attended many times and always find something new.
Last weekend I went to the falsely named World's Largest Yard Sale in Rochester with my friend Kim. We were both disappointed at how many vendors were selling cheap, new products instead of actual used treasures. Granted, there were deals to be had, but it wasn't nearly as large or exciting as we had hoped. I did come home with some little guys for my gardens.
And this great jewelry box that I'm using to store my remote controls and various pairs of glasses. It matches my coffee table perfectly!
Why yes, I did inherit the junk loving gene. My grandfather was instrumental in passing that along. Never pass up a deal, and free stuff is always best. Which reminds me, time to do a dump run and check out the free section; I've come home with some great stuff from the dump. *unapologetic* 😏
I met with a realtor to begin the process of selling my house, so I do want everything to look nice. Fingers crossed that I can get a decent price for the place, because if not, I'm stuck here. It's not a horrible fate, but the commute to work, high property taxes, and expenses of keeping an older, massive house maintained are beginning to wear on me, physically and financially. I need a smaller house where I can focus on the land more than the buildings. It's all about the outside for me!
This weekend Mom and I are headed to the Freyburg Home and Garden Show, which should be fun. We've attended many times and always find something new.
Last weekend I went to the falsely named World's Largest Yard Sale in Rochester with my friend Kim. We were both disappointed at how many vendors were selling cheap, new products instead of actual used treasures. Granted, there were deals to be had, but it wasn't nearly as large or exciting as we had hoped. I did come home with some little guys for my gardens.
And this great jewelry box that I'm using to store my remote controls and various pairs of glasses. It matches my coffee table perfectly!
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Wednesday, May 9, 2018
Updates
Two updates.
1. The fence laid down over the garden doesn't keep one of the cats from using it as a toilet, she just does her thing and walks away without attempting to bury it. Clearly this is one feline who has zero effs to give.
2. After two days, the solar fountain stopped working. The company is sending a replacement fountain, so we'll see how the next unit fares.
1. The fence laid down over the garden doesn't keep one of the cats from using it as a toilet, she just does her thing and walks away without attempting to bury it. Clearly this is one feline who has zero effs to give.
2. After two days, the solar fountain stopped working. The company is sending a replacement fountain, so we'll see how the next unit fares.
Sunday, May 6, 2018
The Little Water Garden
Last year was not so good. I ended up having an algae problem and was too lazy to address it, so nothing really wanted to live in my little "pond".
Even though the tank garden worked well, it was still a pain to have to disassemble it for winter every year. After the first killing frost in the fall I pull the plants out, discarding the water lettuce and water hyacinth. Whatever perennials I can keep over winter, like dwarf papyrus and lavender musk, I bring indoors. The dwarf cattails go into the basement in a bucket of water for the winter, where they never freeze and hardly ever see light. Then I can drain the tank using a small sump pump, give it a good scrubbing, pull it out of the ground and flip it over for the winter. Doing this prevents the water from freezing and cracking the tank. I've decided that it's time to make a more permanent water feature out of my tank garden.
The first thing I did was pull the tank, then clean out the hole and remove the stone edging. You want to be sure the hole and sides are smooth; the PVC pond liner is durable, but it's thin, and sharp stones or sticks can puncture it. As an added precaution, I added two 50 lb. bags of play sand to the bottom of the hole.
Tutorials online also suggest old carpeting as an underlayment. One thing to note - the pond liner (purchased on Amazon) has a shiny side and a dull side. There were no instructions with the liner that told me which side was supposed to face up, and a quick search online resulted in the oft repeated answer that it doesn't matter. I chose to put the dull side up because the water is reflective enough without a black high gloss shine coming from below. Luckily, the 4'x6' sheet of pond liner I ordered fit perfectly. I secured it in place with some heavy stones, making sure to leave a little give in the liner to accommodate for the weight and distribution of the water that would be added.
Before I started setting the edging stones, I mostly filled the hole with water to be sure I had given it enough slack, and to be sure the heavier stones would hold the liner corners when the pond was full. I also started VERY GENTLY adding river rock to the bottom, and set a few larger rocks in the pond.
Once I knew the corners were secure, I moved on to the outer pieces of stone. The black flies were brutal at this point and I just wanted to get it done and get back inside. I didn't take the time to level out the stones and ensure they were locked in place with the stone dust. I also only had one bag of stone dust, so later in the season I'll probably reset the edging properly. Once that was done, I filled the pond to overflowing, to try to drain out some of the dirt and debris that had found its way into it.
The next morning the water was much more clear, and the plants still look ok.
Not great, but not bad. I wish I'd lowered the back edge so it was not so visible, but floating water plants will help camouflage that. Once the really warm weather gets here I'll be able to add water lettuce and hyacinth, as well as the other perennials.
Materials and costs:
Pond liner (4x6) $24
Solar fountain $16
Play sand 50 lbs $5 ea.
The flagstone was something I had on hand, as well as the river rocks and random stones. The most expensive part of the water feature, I've learned, are the plants!
Saturday, May 5, 2018
Prepwork and Scheming
The spring cleaning and prep-work for the gardens continues. More raking, and more musing as to where I'm going to put what. I want to move things around a little this year as far as vegetables in the container gardens, but the late spring and weather conditions put me behind a little. I suddenly realized that I still hadn't planted my peas, and May was upon us! Peas like cool weather and I usually plant them as soon as the pots are cleared of snow in April. In a panic, I planted them in the same containers the other day just to get them in the ground. So much for shaking it up.
The little bed where I normally plant tomatoes is going to be dedicated to bush beans and radish. Unfortunately this bed attracts the cats, even though I've built them an outdoor litter box. Maybe it's because they're confined to a small yard, but I've found nothing yet that will deter them from using my gardens as toilets. Last year I tried hundreds of plastic forks planted in the dirt around my plants, and the cats just dug them up and made room to do their business. I've seen plastic mats with spikes on them that you can cut to size for your garden, but I would rather use something I have on hand. For the half moon garden I'm trying laying down short wire decorative fence.
I figure it should leave openings enough to deter digging but allow plants to grow. Time will tell. As it is, I had to dig the top layer of soil off and replace it with fresh dirt. It didn't go to waste, though. I'm trying some hugelkultur gardening!
Hugelkultur (translation - hill culture) is a type of gardening that involves mounding materials to form a hill shape, and planting into that. Generally you start with logs and/or branches, then layer materials like leaves, sod, and compost over that, and finish with soil. The idea behind this type of gardening is that you're putting the power of compost to work over a greater period of time. The logs and branches take a longer time to break down and tend to hold moisture, making watering sometimes unnecessary unless there's a drought. The rest of the materials provide nutrients as they break down, as well as heat that's created during that decaying process.
Over the winter I had a bunch of pine branches come down on the mule shed, so instead of hauling them to the burn pile, I piled them up where they sat. I added some leaves I had raked off the back yard, then tossed on some mulch hay that I had used as insulation against the house foundation, and tossed the nasty garden soil into the mix. Once Reputa the Beauta (my trusty garden tractor) is out of her winter storage mode, I'll haul down some composted mule manure to add to the pile. Then a layer of dirt, and finally...I don't know yet. Again, what to plant where? Should I try veggies? Flowers? I've seen hugelkultur gardens with a mix of things, so maybe that's a possibility. We'll see! I still have a long way to go prepping and protecting before I start planting.
To protect the new raised bed, I'm thinking of using some old fencing I made from grade stakes. I'm hoping laying them down across the soil will deter the cats. I'm thinking the tomatoes will go in this garden.
It's been heartening to see the daffodils popping up around the property, and everything is greening up nicely.
The black flies are out en force, unfortunately. I've put the bug curtains on the mule shed and they don't come out of there until the dark of night, when the black flies disappear. They are so thick right now that any outdoor chores are miserable.
One non-gardening chore that needed doing was having the septic pumped, so I dug up the tank cover before the septic company came. The cats were immediately drawn to it, as it's cement and holds the heat of the sun and the heat generated from the tank itself. They spent a good part of the evening writhing around on it. Ew.
My goal for this weekend is to swap out my stock tank water garden for a more permanent water feature. I've purchased some pond lining fabric to replace the plastic tank and a small solar fountain to provide aeration. Depending on the size of the fabric, I may make the pond a little larger and deeper than the stock tank. I'm excited to get started, and will document the upgrade in my next post.
The little bed where I normally plant tomatoes is going to be dedicated to bush beans and radish. Unfortunately this bed attracts the cats, even though I've built them an outdoor litter box. Maybe it's because they're confined to a small yard, but I've found nothing yet that will deter them from using my gardens as toilets. Last year I tried hundreds of plastic forks planted in the dirt around my plants, and the cats just dug them up and made room to do their business. I've seen plastic mats with spikes on them that you can cut to size for your garden, but I would rather use something I have on hand. For the half moon garden I'm trying laying down short wire decorative fence.
I figure it should leave openings enough to deter digging but allow plants to grow. Time will tell. As it is, I had to dig the top layer of soil off and replace it with fresh dirt. It didn't go to waste, though. I'm trying some hugelkultur gardening!
Hugelkultur (translation - hill culture) is a type of gardening that involves mounding materials to form a hill shape, and planting into that. Generally you start with logs and/or branches, then layer materials like leaves, sod, and compost over that, and finish with soil. The idea behind this type of gardening is that you're putting the power of compost to work over a greater period of time. The logs and branches take a longer time to break down and tend to hold moisture, making watering sometimes unnecessary unless there's a drought. The rest of the materials provide nutrients as they break down, as well as heat that's created during that decaying process.
Over the winter I had a bunch of pine branches come down on the mule shed, so instead of hauling them to the burn pile, I piled them up where they sat. I added some leaves I had raked off the back yard, then tossed on some mulch hay that I had used as insulation against the house foundation, and tossed the nasty garden soil into the mix. Once Reputa the Beauta (my trusty garden tractor) is out of her winter storage mode, I'll haul down some composted mule manure to add to the pile. Then a layer of dirt, and finally...I don't know yet. Again, what to plant where? Should I try veggies? Flowers? I've seen hugelkultur gardens with a mix of things, so maybe that's a possibility. We'll see! I still have a long way to go prepping and protecting before I start planting.
To protect the new raised bed, I'm thinking of using some old fencing I made from grade stakes. I'm hoping laying them down across the soil will deter the cats. I'm thinking the tomatoes will go in this garden.
The black flies are out en force, unfortunately. I've put the bug curtains on the mule shed and they don't come out of there until the dark of night, when the black flies disappear. They are so thick right now that any outdoor chores are miserable.
One non-gardening chore that needed doing was having the septic pumped, so I dug up the tank cover before the septic company came. The cats were immediately drawn to it, as it's cement and holds the heat of the sun and the heat generated from the tank itself. They spent a good part of the evening writhing around on it. Ew.
My goal for this weekend is to swap out my stock tank water garden for a more permanent water feature. I've purchased some pond lining fabric to replace the plastic tank and a small solar fountain to provide aeration. Depending on the size of the fabric, I may make the pond a little larger and deeper than the stock tank. I'm excited to get started, and will document the upgrade in my next post.
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