The Continuing Adventures of Mushroom Fence

Mushroom Fence has been at it again…

This past week was a busy one at work – we had a Monstrous Monday that was followed up by a Terrible Technology Tuesday, and then a Woefully Wicked Wednesday… yes, I am allowing my dramatic side a little free reign here.

Anyhow, suffice it to say that the first half of the week was challenging.

Thursday I had a really great interview for a job I have applied for (still within the company I work for) and then Friday, though long, was really just a day to be gotten through.

As the week was going on, I knew there was fence activity afoot – but until Friday morning I really had no idea just how much.  I get out of bed when it is dark, am quite often leaving for work while still dark and then getting home when dark.  Imagine my surprise on Friday morning (when I had a later start) and I looked out into my back yard to see, well, PROGRESS…

My Good Neighbour Rob was out having his morning cup of coffee and finishing off framing in the forms in order to pour the retaining wall!

I got home around 7 last night and so didn’t see how it all turned out, but when I went out today, well, it looks wonderful – and lo and behold – the fence is almost done!

Anyhow, here is the progress thus far:

Initial stages - line set and old fence down

Jasmine checking out the progress

Old fence pile

First section in place!

Forms built, concrete poured and posts in place!

Second section and a GREAT privacy gate!!

Tomorrow looks to be a clearer day, and, if so, I’ll have to get out there myself and get a dog poo patrol of the yard done, and then maybe get the small fir-like tree dug out so I can move the pile of dirt over to where I will put the final raised bed… This year I will put the tomatoes in there and plant peas and beans in the side bed… the garlic is coming along nicely and so I just have to figure out my “what else”… Carrots, lettuce… I am definitely going to do Russian Blue potatoes again… Ah… thoughts of spring!

With love across the waters…

A Raised Bed and a Surprise!

In July of this year, after the bulk of the back fence project was done, I decided it was finally time to start putting in raised garden beds. I have a fair amount of yard space that can be given over to planting vegetables and fruits, but in the interests of keeping Jasmine (not to mention Missy) out of my food supply, I determined that putting in raised beds would be a Very Good Idea.

I picked up four 12’ rough cut cedar planks (I went with 1”x8” but in retrospect I should have gone with 2”x8” instead) and once home set up my portable saw horses and got to work.

The spot where the new bed would go

Portable saw-horse reporting for duty - and behind it
is the pile of dirt left over from digging post holes

Boards cut and ready to assemble

I decided that the bed I was putting in should be two foot deep by 10 foot long and so measured and cut my boards to suit this.  A number of years ago now Mum & Dad started replacing their raised beds (that were made with wood) with concrete poured raised beds – where they are they have to combat the roots of cedar trees and so concrete is a better fit for them. To that end, they gave me the corner connectors that they had bought from Lee Valley Tools (the BEST store on earth ha ha ha) and I took out 8 of them (and the screws) because this particular bed was going to end up being 2 feet wide by 10 feet long by 16 inches deep. Boards cut I got things into place and connected all of the pieces and then stacked the two “boxes” to make one very deep one. This should end up being PLENTY of space to grow whatever I end up planting in there (on purpose) in.

MORE than deep enough!

Bed in place, I next took on the compost bin move project. Before re-claiming all of the compost material, I lined the very bottom of the new garden bed with newspaper.  This will eventually help keep down any serious weeds that may be already in the ground… Next up I took apart the two-bin compost I built at the beginning of last summer and moved all of the material in that over into the bottom of the new raised bed.  On top of that I put another thick layer of newspaper and then on the very top I put the soil that had been initially displaced when Dad and Rob (my brother) dug out the fence post holes.

New bed in, filled with compost material
and left-over post hole dirt

I will need to top dress the bed with sea soil and more potting soil, and I’ll need to over seed that through the winter with something like fall rye (which can be dug under in the spring and rots down into a lovely green manure) but for now… It’ll do just fine!

About a week after I got the new bed in place and all the dirt moved in I noticed a plant… kind of a large leaf plant – that had self-started in the new bed.  I know it is a member of the squash family – I have checked the leaves and now that it is flowering, looked at the flowers and have confirmed it is definitely a member of the squash family.

Volunteer...

Here’s the thing though, I don’t know exactly WHAT it really is.  It might be a pumpkin – I did try to sprout some Crown Prince pumpkin, but thought that all of the seeds were not viable and so gave up on them and chucked them into the compost bin. It may also be a butternut squash… or a regular orange pumpkin – I have had a number of those throughout the year and when I was preparing them I just threw all of the seeds and guts into my compost without thinking.

Female flower

Male flowers

Whatever it is, it may not have enough time to ripen before the frosts come.  I actually hope it does though – I’m curious to see what it is, and I would LOVE to have some of my own squash or pumpkin for winter consumption!

With love across the waters,

Foraging for Kale

We have been in the throes of a heat wave.  There's been no rain in nearly a month and we've had hot dry sunny weather all July.  Though most people complain about the rain all winter, I choose not to as I know how desperate we on Vancouver Island become during the dry and hot summer months. The garden beds have dried out (and required the installation of soaker lines to keep my poor plants hydrated) the forests have become dangerous (though the true danger is from people and carelessness) and my world had taken on a fine dust covered film. I have also not turned on my oven in over a month.

 

I was able to harvest my garlic and it is curing in my shed for about a week and a half and now it needs to be cleaned off, have the chaff trimmed from it and it needs to be stored for overwinter consumption.

 

Yesterday the skies were gray and overcast almost all day.  My Mum & Dad came up in the morning to bring up Grandma's old love seat, a chair of my Great Grandmother's (on my Mum's side) and Grandma's bed.  We also finished most of the back fence project - the lattice is installed and it looks AWESOME! And finally, after lunch we assembled the bed.  I now have a spare bed and once again I get to do some re-arranging to make things a little more space friendly.

 

Late in the afternoon, after Mum & Dad had headed back down to Thetis Island, I was sitting inside thinking on making myself some dinner and the skies opened up and POURED.  I'm not talking sprinkle, I'm talking out and out pouring rain.  It was glorious!  It rained like that off and on all night and most of today and I could practically hear the trees sighing in relief.  My plants outside look happier and my apple and pear trees (and the little coral bark maple out front) are even looking perkier.

 

As a result of the MUCH cooler day today I even turned on my oven for the first time in over a month!  I baked cookies and granola.  I packaged up and vacuum sealed the granola for future use since I opened a box of cheerios the other day and need to finish that before starting something new, but still, I've not had my own home-made granola in what feels like AGES.

 

Since I wasn't needing to stain or cut or organize anything fence-wise today, I also took some time to harvest and freeze some of my kale for winter consumption.  I had to battle aphids - there was quite the infestation in there - but I won that battle for now... next year I will buy ladybugs (hee hee hee) to eat the aphids for me... after much soaking and washing, I laid out the leaves on cookie sheets and froze them. 

 

Did you know that after about an hour in the freezer kale will shatter if you drop a leaf on the floor?  I didn't know that either.

 

Kale frozen, I decided to try my hand at making kale chips and a kale and pear smoothie.  The smoothie is delicious - though I think next time I will have to puree the kale before adding the other stuff so that there isn't so much to chew on (ha ha ha!)

 

The kale chips are in the oven and I may be ready to try some of them after supper when I watch TV. 

 

The kale harvesting has cleaned out about a third of my bed - I am selectively pulling plants out now as the big ones I am leaving will continue to grow through the fall and provide me with healthy greens through the winter.

 

All in all a good day and a great weekend!

 

With love across the waters,

Fencing – Parts Two and Three…

A couple of days after my family came up and helped me with the first part of the fencing project, my neighbour helped out with the second part – pouring concrete into the post holes.  He didn’t just blop it into the holes though – they were poured and shaped – what he did (he works with concrete for a living) was to pour the concrete and then he rounded up the pour so that the concrete comes up the posts a little – this way, the soil will have hard work to pile up around the posts and with the creosote Dad painted on the bottoms, the posts will last that much longer and I won’t have to worry about the posts rotting away at the base any time soon.

 

Rounded concrete

Friday of this week, Mum & Dad came up for the day and we built the fence. Dad had had me measure up and down and across the posts at a number of different spots and I also held back about 8 boards from the old fence as he didn’t have enough spare lumber on hand to complete the entire section.  We got started by pulling out all of the needed tools (Dad brought almost everything needed up with him) and getting the boards piled and ready to go.  He pulled the braces off of the posts and we stacked the lumber on those as the grass was deep and a little wet from the previous day’s rain.

 

Dad had these really cool collapsible saw-horses he got from Lee Valley Tools a number of years ago (I need a pair!) and set those up as well.  And we got down to it!  The cross pieces went up first and then the boards went on and then the top pieces went on. Start to finish we were done in about 3 hours!

 

From the alley

From the yard

After we had lunch and packed things up, Mum & Dad headed home and since Jasmine was still at “Doggie Day Care” for another couple of hours, I opted to go over to Slegg Lumber, pick up stain and get the fence stained.

 

It looks pretty damn amazing if I do say so myself!

 

Stained

The fourth part of the back fence project will be a lattice panel on the top of both sections – for a little more privacy from the back alley. That part will, hopefully, be completed before the end of summer.

 

Tomorrow I will be taking a drive over to Slegg Lumber again – this time to price out the lattice and get more information about sizes and so forth.  The other thing I will be doing is getting some 1” x 6” cedar boards that I can make a raised gardening bed with – my plan is to lay a long skinny one out in front of the fence and plant raspberry canes. The bed will actually serve a second purpose – aside from producing raspberries, I mean.  The section of the fence that is at the corner of the yard sits quite high up off the ground – the raspberry bed will effectively prevent Jasmine from escape under the fence.

With love across the waters,

 

Fencing - And Not With A Sword

You may recall that back in November I had an issue with a bear. The bear pulled down a section of my fence, pulled out a wall in my wonderful compost bin and had a munch on some apple leavings from when I made and canned my applesauce in the fall.

 

THIS year I will not make that mistake.  THIS year I will dig the apple leavings directly into whatever vegetable bed I am working on in order to augment the soil directly AND avoid any bear invasions to my yard.

 

This weekend saw the initial stages of the New Back Fence project get off the ground.  Or into it, if you like. 

 

On Friday my Mum & Dad and their dog Querida, and my Brother and Nephew came for a part of the day to visit and help get the old fence torn down and taken apart, dig fence-post holes and brace up the posts to hold in place until I can get concrete into the holes and also to put up a temporary fence to keep Miss Jasmine contained in my back yard while all of this is ongoing. Because it was a Friday, my Sister in Law was working and unable to come (I asked her to skip school but she has a good work ethic and went to work instead of coming to goof off with us up here) but I am hopeful that on the next fence project day she can come too.

 

While Mum and I distracted Finn (my gorgeous Nephew) Dad and Rob went to town on the old fence.  The pulled it down, pulled out the old post that the gate was hung on, dug deep holes, braced and placed the new fence posts (in readiness for concrete insertion - which one of my neighbours is going to help me out with) and then erected a new temporary fence to keep Jasmine in the yard.

 

Here's the state of the union before:

Before the bear pulled it down

After the bear pulled it over and
I propped it back up

Fence post in the corner - yes, it really IS
not touching the ground!

The fun part of Friday for me was actually playing with Finn and my Mum in puddles.  Mum & I walked Finn around to the Number 6 Mine Park in Cumberland where they have some great toddler-friendly activity thingies like slides and wheels to spin around on posts.  The skies opened up and POURED on us while we walked over so we took temporary refuge on the platform and waited for the rain to ease off a little.  We checked out the fun stuff and then on the way back we sploshed Finn in puddles.  Mum and I each held onto one of his hands and played "one, two, three - WHEE" with him - whee being the part of the game where we swung him up in the air and he landed both feet into the puddle. Finn had a ball with this and made some great splashes as Cumberland has some rather significant potholes. Needless to say, Finn`s clothing all came off when we got back to my house and it all went into the drier!

 

The bulk of the work dealt with, after lunch all that was left to do was to take apart the old fence sections.  Rob, Mum & Finn headed back down to Nanaimo, and Dad an I made short work of taking it all apart and pulling out all of the old nails. I will not be able to salvage any of the old fence for use in the new fence - the boards are pretty rotted and worn away - but I WILL be able to recycle the old fence boards into my compost bin.  I`m going to be moving it (yes, again) and I have decided that I will be going back to a single bin as, except for Autumn (when the leaves make a great addition) one bin is typically enough for my needs.

 

I`m going to move it back across the yard to where it was in the first place - between the lilac tree and the shed - it will be less visible in the old (new) spot and with the help of the fence boards I am going to be able to incorporate, it should be sturdy and unlikely to leak compost guts out the sides.

 

Compost bin - current location.

 

New (old) compost bin location

 

Here`s a final shot of what the yard looks like at the end of today`s fencing activities.  I can only hope that no hooligans come around and push the posts over before the concrete gets poured!



Temporary fence in place
New fence posts in and waiting for concrete!

With love across the waters,

 

Waking Up The Springtime Yard

I have spent a few hours of my Sunday/Monday weekend outside working on my back yard.  Yesterday’s outside time started with a post-snow gleaning of all of the dog poop that accumulated while snow was on the ground for a couple of months.  I did get out there while the snow was thick and heavy on the ground and do a gleaning at that point, but yesterday saw the very last of the back-yard snow gone and, with a warmish day in the works; I thought I should take advantage of the lack of rain and get out there and, well, glean.

 

That done, I spent a lovely hour outside working on pruning some of my shrubbery and the apple tree.  There’s a pile in the middle of my back yard awaiting removal now. I also, however, discovered that my wheelbarrow’s tire is flat as a pancake and that there isn’t an inner-tube – which means I either need to learn how to re-inflate a tire that doesn’t have an inner tube (I researched online and it looks too complicated) OR I need to acquire a wheelbarrow tire inner tube (MUCH less complicated and most likely my plan of attack) some time this coming week.

 

I need my wheelbarrow, you see, to help when I am removing pruning cuttings and also when cleaning up the winter debris and mulch I put down.  My compost bin is about to get a lovely rotting down leaves!

 

Once I had raked and composted the grass and leaves left over from fall, I moved my herb pots back to their space along the side fence and hauled out my bistro set – maybe a little early for it at this point, but it feels good to have it out and welcoming for the first dry day of sunshine I am home and can have a coffee outside!  I left the BBQ put away - but I suspect it too will be coming out very soon!

 

Next up on my list was to untangle my clematis from the temporary trellis-y thing I had it on last year and to affix it to the trellis-y screen that is currently (theoretically) hiding my oil tank from view in the back yard. Quick note to self, clematis is a MASSIVE pain in the bottom to be untangling and re-hanging – so never again plan to do something like that! The screen it is now affixed to is one it can stay on for years to come – or until I get rid of the oil tank for good and claim that space for addition to the house – whichever comes first.

 

I also started the work to set up where my 2013 vegetable garden will reside.  I have laid out the patio squares in between the legs of the arbour that will be acting as my gate into the garden (incidentally, it will also be what I grow my beans up over as it is the perfect height and size for me to grow green beans on) and then last of all I removed some weed suppressing cloth that the previous owner had put down under gravel along that area.  I will have a HUGE job ahead of me where screening out all of the gravel is concerned – there are stones and so forth all over the place in the area I plan to start my garden in, but this is something I can definitely do in stages.  I’m not entirely certain WHAT to do with all of that gravel when I screen it all out – maybe use it to augment Navijack when I am looking to sink fence posts and pour concrete?

 

I also found more new and interesting “crap” during my labours – a very old style pitchfork head, some spike things that I am sure are for gardening (but will have to ask my mum about) and another shovel head. I also harvested some sunchokes from the patch that grows along the back fence - I'm going to try experimenting with them this week.  I can't think if I have ever had them before and I know I have never cooked with them, so this should be interesting!

 

All done, I am soaking some dishes now and have a cup of tea steeped and ready for drinking.  Time to put together a list of supplies I will need for my next stages of the spring garden project.  Metal posts, some wire for fencing, a heavy duty screen for getting gravel out of the soil, an inner tube for my wheelbarrow’s tire, and a new hose to name a few…. I wonder if I can locate any of these things using freecycle?

 

With love across the waters,

Right Now The Bear is Winning…

… But not for long.

On Saturday morning I got up for work as usual.  Let the dog out.  She came straight back in.  Cat wanted out.  She turned around and also came straight back in.

This is not usual, but on Saturday morning it also wasn’t wholly unexpected either as we were in the midst of what on the Island of Jersey (Channel Islands) is known as a Right Hoolie (not to be confused with a regular Hoolie which just blows the rain around and makes things generally miserable.  We were having gale force winds combined with rain so heavily pouring down that visibility was being impacted. I didn’t force the outside issue as I could let the cat out the front door to a covered (if windy) front step & Jasmine and I would be going out for our regular walk later on anyhow.

After the walk I actually had to strip at the door (inside, not outside) so as not to spread puddles of water all around my living room. Into the shower and ready for work I then got.

Last pre-departure pee time outside for Jasmine and what do I see, but a whole section of my fence lying down in the alley AND one of the walls of my marvellous compost bin lying on the ground with compost pulled out on top of it.

Hm.

When on my breaks I looked up how to repel bears from compost and also bear proofing fencing. FYI, bear-proof fencing sounds scary as hell as the best ones are electrified with high voltage as it takes a lot more than a simple electric fence to stop a determined bear.

Yipes!

I stopped on the way home to pick up some more zap straps, some 2.5’ screws and some groceries for me (I found mint flavoured rosebuds!!) and while looking for the zap straps and screws I also asked about purchasing some lime. Evidently it helps break compost down faster AND it masks the scent of anything a bear would consider to be “yummy”.  None to be had, but the gal I was speaking with DID offer an interesting suggestion – cayenne pepper.  Bears don’t like to smell it (having taken a big whiff when I was dousing my compost pile, I can understand that) AND the taste makes them think twice about eating.

All items in hand, I came home and went outside to prop up the pulled down panel and douse everything with pepper.  It was actually more fun than it sounds.

I spoke with my folks that night & Dad will be coming up to help me repair/replace at least the back section of the fence (which actually has no posts sunk into the ground – no wonder the damn thing just fell over) in a couple of weeks time, but my job for yesterday was to go outside and shore up the fence and compost bin.

While it wasn’t terrible work, it was raining and so it was damp.  Everything was even still in place this morning when I got up, so maybe the cayenne pepper is still working even though it’s wet out!

Today’s projects are more domestic.  Some leaves raked and into the compost bin, bread in the oven baking now and cookies planned as well. I also needed to make a couple of calls to find out where I could get something called “navijack” which is a composite of sand and gravel used to make concrete.  Great news, there’s a big gravel pit not too far from my home that sells it either by the yard, or at a $20 minimum – so the half yard I will need isn’t going to cost as much as I thought it would – woo hoo!

Anyhow, for your reviewing pleasure, here’s what I was working on yesterday…

Propped up

Yes, this is a corner. That's right - that "corner"post
is mostly gone and wasn't actually in the ground!

Look at the right side - yes, that's an 8-foot length
of re-bar, bent at a 90* angle!

With love across the waters,