More roto tilling and path borders

Today was a very busy day.  With Wifey and The Kids (no, not a band name) out of town and my fresh from a week of travel, I have to make the most of my unencumbered time.

In addition to other yard projects, I roto-tilled the garden for a second time, edged the path border (continuing from what I started previously), and made and installed mulch guides.   I also dug two holes for fence posts.

I still have tomorrow morning and part of the afternoon, I suspect.  They won't be returning until after lunch.

Intuition pays off for me

Yesterday evening, Wifey was out with The Boy at his Cub Scout meeting.  Since the other two kids were in bed, I worked in the garage preparing some more border material for the pathways.  Once that was done, I went to the garden to trench for more fence installation.

We've had some storms come through over the last few days with more to come.  As I dug, a clean-smelling wind blew with some mist in the air.  Over my shoulder another set of clouds passed overhead with some lighting bouncing around among the clouds.  I had a thought that, maybe, it's time to go in.  I decided that I was safe from the lightning given where the thunder was and that I hadn't seen any lightning actually come to ground.  After about 5 more minutes of digging, another front blew in with the trees down the street signaling faster wind blowing. 

There was enough of that wind that I looked up to verify it wasn't rain coming down, instead.  I saw a low-lying dark cloud starting to peek over the top of those trees.  Suddenly, I had an urgent thought that it was time to stop.  Stop digging RIGHT  NOW.  I grabbed my shovel and hustled to the garage.

I had been inside the garage for less than a minute than a complete downpour erupted from the sky.  It wasn't the most rain I'd ever seen, but it was a lot.  Shortly after the rain started, hail came down for about 10 minutes.

I'm really glad I listened to that insistent voice in my head.

Progress with the permaculture

One of the attractions we had for our home was the existence of some fruit trees already on the property.  Unfortunately, what we saw was potential, not demonstrated success.  Because we were in a drought, the peaches never actually developed into much more than a pit.

It'll be interesting to see what happens this year, but for now we have new baby peaches on the tree.

Also, there was a fig tree already in residence, however, we'd been told that it had never fruited.  Well, we have some on the tree now!

To supplement what was already there, we planted blueberries, apples, more figs and pears.  In the late fall, I found that deer had broken limbs on a few of the apple trees.  I got to one that still looked fresh and grafted it back together.  I'm thrilled to say that it worked.

I don't know how things will develop with the apple trees, but four of the six trees have blossoms on them.  The two that don't are the ones that fruit late in the season.  I can't say I'm surprised there are no flowers just yet.

The blueberries we planted in the fall all have flowers on them.

Also, the new pear tree in the front bed appears to be doing well.  The baby pears that were on the tree are slowly growing, too.

Starting the garden path

My Saturday project was to start the garden path.    Maybe it's because I'm a little type A or maybe it's because I'm an engineer, I don't know, but I like to have some organization in my garden.  That includes trying to keep the garden beds and mulched paths separate.  In the garden plot, we had somewhat raised garden boxes to perform that service.

For this garden, I decided that I'd buy some scrap plywood from the salvage yard and rip it to size to use for borders. 

 
I also bought some 1xWhatever boards and rip that to size to use for home made stakes. 

Once all that was done, I dug some trenches along the grassed areas where I'd roto-tilled.

After installing the path borders, I laid down scrap cardboard that we'd collected for the last few months.  That wasn't all that hard considering the shipping crates and all the Amazon boxes we accumulate here.  Prior to putting that down, though, I try to remove all the plastic from the boxes from the tape and labels.

Once that was done, I started mulching.  Thankfully, I'd thought ahead and bought bulk mulch.  Since I have a truck, I got a single load which is about 1 cubic yard.

Below, you can see how far I got with the single cubic yard of mulch.  Unfortunately, I was one wheelbarrow short of a full application for that path section.  The borders will be much less noticeable after I add compost to the garden.

Considering how much I got done, I figure I'm going to need another 3-4 cubic yards to finish the garden paths.  I also need to get more scrap plywood and staking material for the borders.

I have a lot more to do, but it's a start.

Clearing out the front garden, part 5 - The stump is gone

Continuing the series from Part 4 that began here.

With much thanks to our neighbor with the tractor, the pine tree stump is gone.  It fought a valiant defense, but it was no match for a Ford tractor operated by someone who knows what they're doing.

It's "game on!" for putting the second fig tree in its permanent home.

Clearing out the front garden, part 4 - the tree is down!

Continuing the series from Part 3 that began here.

We got the tree down from the front garden this evening.  I also was reminded that some of our neighbors called that ugly pine tree "Oscar the Grouch."  Well, Oscar was introduced to the Maryland Chainsaw Massacre today.

Tomorrow, if Wifey is correct, our neighbor across the street will be coming over to pull the stump out of the ground using his tractor.

The two new blueberries are in the ground

Yesterday, Wifey unleashed me on to the world to go do what I do.  As a result, the two new blueberry bushes have been planted.

More blueberry bushes!

Yesterday we made another trip to Behnke Nurseries looking for blueberry bushes.  We'd already tried a couple of other larger nurseries last weekend and weren't impressed with the selection of non-GMO fruit trees and bushes.  After checking out the selection of what was onhand, I settled on one each of the Elliott Northern Highbush and Northland Northern Hughbush Blueberries.

They should go nicely with the others I already have in the orchard.

And we have added a pear tree to the mix!

Yesterday when we bought the blueberry bushes, we bought a dwarf pear tree as well.  We don't foresee our family as being huge pear eaters, but we still enjoy the occasional pear.  The addition of a pear tree will also help to tie the front bed together and since it's a dwarf variety, it'll only grow to 8'-10' tall and wide.

We had a big of a hard time finding a variety that is self-pollinating, but the Kieffer Pear works for us.

Nature comes to us

Off and on for the last week we've wondered how a bird keeps getting into the garage.  This afternoon, I saw something on a shelf that piqued my curiosity.

It looked like a pile of sticks piled together.  Figuring that it was some oddball game the kids were playing, I got closer and was greeted with a surprise when a bird bolted from that pile of sticks.

Wifey has convinced me to leave everything as it is.  I just hope we don't manage to attract snakes into the garage in search of the eggs.

Beginnings of the side garden fence

Yesterday evening, Wifey and I had some time to tackle the side garden fence.  The first segment of the fence is in place.  Only 3 more to go!

More fence posts are in the side garden

I had some time yesterday to tackle getting more fence posts in the ground around the side garden.  I'd forgotten exactly how nasty the job was thanks to having to tar the posts before I sunk them.  Thankfully, I have clothes I save for just that job so I didn't ruin anything else.

I've discovered that I need to re-sink one of the posts by the large maple tree.  I don't know what I was thinking when I did it, but it isn't in line with the other two posts down there.

Tilling is finished?

With special thanks to all the rain we received yesterday, I was able to pretty much finish up doing the roto-tilling of the new garden on the side of the house.  I say "pretty much" because I've found that the tines don't overlap which leaves some un-tilled soil in between each of the tines despite the appearance of being completely tilled over.  I've tried to go back and re-till in between where I did the initial passes and have improved on things somewhat. 

I think that what I have is good enough for now especially considering I intend to amend the soil with compost.  The large swaths are paths on either side of where utilities lay.  Odds are good that I'll make one more pass just to make sure everything's turned over well enough.

Next up is to sink more fence posts and to cut plywood into strips to work as a border for mulch.