Reclamation Day 7
Sunday. Three more hours for me and Mulch Boy in the garden. Dare I say it? The front yard and vegetable garden are almost completely reclaimed!
Mulch Boy completely turned all the soil in the vegetable plot, including the new, never-tilled areas. Then he took on the ugly task of cleaning up the other side of the little blue house.
I forgot to take before and after pictures, so words will have to suffice. The other side of the house consists of a narrow sidewalk between our house and a chainlink fence that divides our property from our neighbor's. An open stairway leads down to our basement door and a drain. There is one patch of earth back there, covered in English ivy invading from next door.
Towering over this area and indeed our house itself are four giant holly trees. Four giant, apparently perpetually shedding holly trees. As a result, that little alleyway seems to constantly fill up with holly leaves. And because it's sort of out of sight, it usually is out of mind, and thus becomes a bigger and bigger mess over time. A pointy, sticky mess.
This is the challenge brave Mulch Boy chose to take on. He dug up all the English ivy. He raked up and bagged all those horrible holly leaves (two giant lawn bags worth) from the walkway AND the stairs. He then harvested super-soil from the earth patch, the compost created from years of holly leaves decomposing. The vegetable garden became the beneficiary of this dark, rich harvest.
Meanwhile in the front in The Big Bed, Weedy, The Claw, and I weeded. And weeded. And weeded. For three hours. For the before pictures, go here.
As I mentioned (whined) yesterday, The Big Bed was a horrible, terrible mess of weeds, and the worst offender was black-eyed Susans--originally planted by me. They ultimately staged a coup and took over the entire bed. So I dug them up. One by one. Hundreds of them, it seemed. Not all of them; I left several bunches where I originally planted them. But the playing field is now much more level for all the perennials. Behold: AFTER!
The only thing left to do in The Big Bed is EDGING! Even without it, I can't believe the transformation we've made in seven days of work. I am in love with the yard again. Now I can't wait to MULCH!
Mulch Boy completely turned all the soil in the vegetable plot, including the new, never-tilled areas. Then he took on the ugly task of cleaning up the other side of the little blue house.
I forgot to take before and after pictures, so words will have to suffice. The other side of the house consists of a narrow sidewalk between our house and a chainlink fence that divides our property from our neighbor's. An open stairway leads down to our basement door and a drain. There is one patch of earth back there, covered in English ivy invading from next door.
Towering over this area and indeed our house itself are four giant holly trees. Four giant, apparently perpetually shedding holly trees. As a result, that little alleyway seems to constantly fill up with holly leaves. And because it's sort of out of sight, it usually is out of mind, and thus becomes a bigger and bigger mess over time. A pointy, sticky mess.
This is the challenge brave Mulch Boy chose to take on. He dug up all the English ivy. He raked up and bagged all those horrible holly leaves (two giant lawn bags worth) from the walkway AND the stairs. He then harvested super-soil from the earth patch, the compost created from years of holly leaves decomposing. The vegetable garden became the beneficiary of this dark, rich harvest.
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| "Thank you, Mulch Boy!" |
Meanwhile in the front in The Big Bed, Weedy, The Claw, and I weeded. And weeded. And weeded. For three hours. For the before pictures, go here.
As I mentioned (whined) yesterday, The Big Bed was a horrible, terrible mess of weeds, and the worst offender was black-eyed Susans--originally planted by me. They ultimately staged a coup and took over the entire bed. So I dug them up. One by one. Hundreds of them, it seemed. Not all of them; I left several bunches where I originally planted them. But the playing field is now much more level for all the perennials. Behold: AFTER!
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| The final yard trash tally. The pile on the right? That's the weeding pile from Sunday only. |
Dang, that's a lot of pitchforks in the picturebat the top of the blog! You must bevexpecting to chase offba monster!
ReplyDeleteHi, Anon! Ah yes, the fork family: Forky, Forky Jr., and Forky III. When you have an unfortunate habit of bending your forks, you end up with quite the collection. (So far, Forky III is still undamaged. Miraculously.)
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I AM ready for a monstah attack!