Digging out the front flower bed

I had an extra holiday I could use at work and so spent the day today working in my yard free of distractions from husband or baby. The flower bed I'm working on has needed some attention since we moved into our house. The original owners had put down black fabric and then wood chip mulch which is a terrible idea. The wood chips decomposed and created dirt and the weeds used the black fabrics to anchor themselves.

You can see how when I pulled up some of the black fabric the plants stay attached. They are actually really hard to pull out even when the only thing they are rooted to is the fabric.
I put the extra dirt up in the second terrace of my garden, which has needed some good black dirt as I don't think it was originally used as garden and so is composed of primarily clay soil.

After four hours, this is as far as I got. I forget how much work moving that much dirt can be. I was hoping the have the whole bed dug down to the stone wall level today. Oh well, we'll have to finish it up another weekend.

Cutting Down Trees

We have decided that we need to cut down some more of the trees on the timber line because they are leaning at the house and the trees on that hillside like to fall over randomly. We already had one tree come down and nick the corner of our roof a couple of years ago. So I have to say goodbye to two hickories, a walnut, two pines, and two cherry trees. As much as this saddens me it will be nice to not have to worry the next time a wind storm comes through. One of the cherry trees has actually fallen over already, but got caught in the canopy of a slightly bigger tree before it could hit the house. This is what prompted my husband to start calling tree cutting services. I have no problem cutting down trees ourselves anywhere else on our property, but I would rather have professionals do it when it comes to trees that are already looking like they would like to have a go with my roof.

Cleaning Up the Yard

My husband and I worked in the yard this last Saturday cleaning up the flower beds around the house and cutting down the little scrap trees that grow up next to the timber. We even cleaned the house. It was a very productive day. See the before and after photos:



I meant to do a

Weekend Yard Maintenance

It is cold again, and the excitement I was feeling for spring has dwindled as I haven't had time to work the entire work week. However, now that it is Friday I'm getting my plans in place for the weekend. It is supposed to rain on Sunday, so I will play on putting down some Preen Vegetable Garden Weed Preventer around my vegetables and some Preen Garden Weed Preventer around my flowers. I realized this last week the the two different containers in my shed were actually two different products. I'm sure I knew this when I purchased them and just forgot since last summer. It turns out the Preen Vegetable Garden Weed Preventer can be used around edibles, but the Preen Garden Weed Preventer can not. I am just lucky that when I put the Preen around my asparagus I was using the vegetable variety.

I also need to cut down the ornamental grass. I haven't figured out the best way to do this yet, I just use a hand saw, which I'm sure can not be the best tool for the job. If anyone has a really good method of doing this please let me know.

Happy weekend and and happy yard work!

Working In The Yard With The Baby

I wanted to share my solution for the baby in the garden. I originally thought about wearing him while I was working, but with moving brush and tearing out weeds I tend to get myself covered in dust and fragments and that didn't seem like a good idea. So I found this thing online, and I love it. It's the Summer Infant Pop 'n Play Portable Playard. The neat thing is that the bottom is like a tarp, so the wet ground can't soak through, and it folds up into about the size of a camping chair. My son just played nicely by himself for an hour while I did some yard cleanup on Saturday.