Brain dump on the subject of our yard
Apr. 22nd, 2012 02:20 pmIt's raining, it's pouring. It's been a long time since we have had a long steady rain like this. The pollen is being forced down out of the air and many of the flowers are falling off the bushes. Everything bloomed pretty early this year: the azaleas, and the cherry trees.
All the surviving trees have leaved out. The county planted a large number of trees in the medians of the big roads nearby. Survival rates are correlated with the nearby trees, so you will find one median with all surviving trees and a nearby median with all dead trees (you will not find as often a mixture of living and dead trees in the same median). I suspect that the county will remove the dead trees sometime this year. They may not remove the branches of the ones that are alive low down and dead higher up. It is pretty difficult to work on those trees, just because the roads surrounding them are so busy.
I have planted a mixture of a type of beans, peas and corn. The peas came up first, then the corn is starting to come up fairly well now, and I can just see the beginnings of the beans. I took the easy way out, I spread the seeds and then added more soil on top, instead of digging them in. I also let them be planted fairly close together, so I may (or may not) thin them to get closer to the ideal spacing. I am planning to grow some morning glories around the corn, once it is well established (and I have done any thinning I wish to do).
I haven't mowed my yard yet this year (and it will probably be harder now that the grass is taller). I have weeded out quite a few things. I tend to recognize one type of weed, pull it anywhere I see it, and then move on to another type of weed. One of the weeds that I haven't messed with yet is a very spiky weed. Another one is the poison ivy.
My compost bin/heap is full of decomposable bags of kitchen refuse and weeds. I am completely out of leaves from last year. I've turned the top layers a few times, but I have not dug deep or moved the bin. I can definitely see that the bags from the earliest times are composting fine. I got the bags as a Christmas gift, so they are only 4.5 months old. It is still not enough material for hot composting; in a small house like ours, there will never be enough material for hot composting. I do worry that the weeds will go to seed, even though I try to get them in there early enough that there aren't seeds yet. The heap is very near a pile of sticks from a branch that we had to take down.
We still need to get those sticks out front for yard waste pickup. We also have a tree to take down in the front of the house. It's been leaning at a angle since Snowmegeddon. We need to finish the branch in the back; we were working under a time constraint to get it down before Hurricane Irene came through.
Our fence could use repair or replacement. One of the gates will not close. I don't really know how to fix that myself. The ground has come up under it. On the side of our back yard, we have the ground sloping rapidly away into the fence. It would be nice to add more soil there and flatten it out and use the fence for terracing.
All the surviving trees have leaved out. The county planted a large number of trees in the medians of the big roads nearby. Survival rates are correlated with the nearby trees, so you will find one median with all surviving trees and a nearby median with all dead trees (you will not find as often a mixture of living and dead trees in the same median). I suspect that the county will remove the dead trees sometime this year. They may not remove the branches of the ones that are alive low down and dead higher up. It is pretty difficult to work on those trees, just because the roads surrounding them are so busy.
I have planted a mixture of a type of beans, peas and corn. The peas came up first, then the corn is starting to come up fairly well now, and I can just see the beginnings of the beans. I took the easy way out, I spread the seeds and then added more soil on top, instead of digging them in. I also let them be planted fairly close together, so I may (or may not) thin them to get closer to the ideal spacing. I am planning to grow some morning glories around the corn, once it is well established (and I have done any thinning I wish to do).
I haven't mowed my yard yet this year (and it will probably be harder now that the grass is taller). I have weeded out quite a few things. I tend to recognize one type of weed, pull it anywhere I see it, and then move on to another type of weed. One of the weeds that I haven't messed with yet is a very spiky weed. Another one is the poison ivy.
My compost bin/heap is full of decomposable bags of kitchen refuse and weeds. I am completely out of leaves from last year. I've turned the top layers a few times, but I have not dug deep or moved the bin. I can definitely see that the bags from the earliest times are composting fine. I got the bags as a Christmas gift, so they are only 4.5 months old. It is still not enough material for hot composting; in a small house like ours, there will never be enough material for hot composting. I do worry that the weeds will go to seed, even though I try to get them in there early enough that there aren't seeds yet. The heap is very near a pile of sticks from a branch that we had to take down.
We still need to get those sticks out front for yard waste pickup. We also have a tree to take down in the front of the house. It's been leaning at a angle since Snowmegeddon. We need to finish the branch in the back; we were working under a time constraint to get it down before Hurricane Irene came through.
Our fence could use repair or replacement. One of the gates will not close. I don't really know how to fix that myself. The ground has come up under it. On the side of our back yard, we have the ground sloping rapidly away into the fence. It would be nice to add more soil there and flatten it out and use the fence for terracing.