What I've been up to:
Let's see. Work on the porch hasn't really progressed past my last post. The railings are done and have survived a winter with lots of snow, a spring with some rain, and a mild summer. They still look great and I'm completely pleased with them. I would still like to screen in the porch at some point, but I just haven't gotten the motivation nor funds to do it yet.
I've been spending a great deal of time out in the backyard, trying to get it back in hand. 4 nights of school and homework on weekends created a jungle out there of amazing proportions. I've pulled lots of weeds, mostly creeping charlie, thistles (ouch) bind weed and dandelions. I'm getting something to help with the weeds, but more about that later.
One of the things I was lacking in the backyard was a compost bin. I've been tossing clippings and weeds over the fence in the back where there is a 10 foot space between my fence and the neighbor in back of me. Since they have a few trees and bushes back there that block the view, there wasn't a question of unsightliness, but it did seem a waste to me to just toss all that organic matter over the fence. After a few days of looking (and gasping at prices), I found a moderately priced unit on Amazon and ordered it.
Now in the past when I have had a compost bin, nothing really happened except it got real stinky and I only got usable compost out of it about once a year, so this time I spent some quality time with my computer and read quite a few articles and watched some youtube videos about proper composting. Armed with that information, I was able to load my bin in the recommended layers of green vs brown and in no time at all, I had a cooking compost going. It's been pretty amazing watching everything cook down and feeling the heat come off of it. When I have veggie matter from the kitchen, I make a hole in the middle, dump the stuff in and cover it up. I figure I should have some decent compost in the fall, just about the time to plant some stuff in the backyard.
This leads me to one of the other things I've been researching - food forests. There are some fine videos out there about turning your landscape into a food forest. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it basically means creating an edible landscape with fruit trees and other edible crops grown in conjunction with the trees.
Like most Americans, my landscaping is mostly ornamental in nature. I have one apple tree, which frankly has been a bigger PITA than help, but after reading up on fruit trees, I realize that I've made a number of mistakes with it. One is that I let it get completely out of control and I have never taken care of the soil the tree is growing in. The result of this is that from about mid-July on, I'm picking up hundreds of apples that are full of insects, half-eaten by tree rats (squirrels) and have some sort of blight or fungus on them, rendering them entirely inedible.
The rest of the backyard is filled with perennials. Pretty, but hardly useful except for attracting bees and butterflies. That is of course, a wonderful thing, but none of those plants are going to feed me. I do have a small area where I've put in tomato plants, a couple of peppers and a few herbs.
After reading all these blogs and watching all these videos, I've realized two things. Number one is that I want to put in some dwarf fruit trees, some berry bushes and number two is that I really need to amend my soil. I've neglected it for far too long.
I don't want this post to be too lengthy, so I'll stop here. Tomorrow, I'll cover some of the things I've learned and write about the plans I want to implement in the immediate future.
Thanks for reading - I promise I will be better about posting, so that the energy doesn't die down. For me or my readers.
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