Through the Wilderness!

It's a blessing that sometimes "big" projects aren't quite as large and evil as you fear they are going to be.

Yesterday, I put on long sleeves, a hat, my wellies and went out to tackle the wilderness behind the shed and the chicken pen.

Although it was a pretty miserable job, I got everything cleared back from the fence and all the way around the chicken pen, all in about 3 1/2 hours. In spite of gloves, my hands are rather torn up from blackberry thorns and stinging nettles, but all in all it was not as horrible a task as I had expected.

Experimentally, I left a "hedge" of greenery (sans blackberries) as a sort of "privacy screen" towards the neighbors. If it immediately starts taking over again, we may have to rethink that. Ideally, I'd like to see us grow a row of raspberry bushes along that stretch, but I am just not convinced the soil is good enough, nor that there is even enough of it. Maybe it should be gooseberries-- they are still delicious, but do better with poor soil and little maintenance.

I still need to continue clearing the space to Walt's property line, but the worst part of the job has definitely been taken care of. Of course, there is quite a dump run in our future!

If you compare today's two photos to yesterday's, it gives a pretty good impression of the change of scenery.

I'm glad this all went relatively fast and with less hassle than I expected... which means we are still on track to be able to use some of the space this season. We do have a rather "late" growing season here... it takes a long time before it warms up in spring, but it tends to stay fairly sunny and dry into October.

Now I need to get back over on the "other side" of the garage and see if I can't get the rest of the side yard fully cleaned up before the end of the month. It may be too late to grow quite a few things, but at least the space will be ready... and maybe we can get some herbs started, at the very least.

I really do enjoy gardening, but it can be hard to find enough time when you also have to worry about the daily task of making a living. Not that I am complaining, mind you!

Cleaning out the Chicken Pen, Part Deux

The chicken pen has been completely weeded and cleaned out!

Tori spent the better part of a day-and-a-half tearing everything out of there, and has turned it back into a usable space.

Keep in mind that this was virtually impenetrable "thicket," just two days ago. That was a LOT of work.

She is very enthusiastic about "growing things" and really wanted to "take back" this space and make it useful. And the fact that it is completely fenced in will keep any kind of critters (deer, raccoons, etc.) from getting in and nibbling on whatever is growing there.

Personally, Sarah and I are both thrilled about the progress we're seeing outside, as we both have pretty busy schedules that have kept us from doing anywhere near as much yardwork as we are really wanting to. And with Tori tearing into it, we're also feeling more inspired to join in-- it's a "win-win," all around.

Of course, there is a "looming thicket" still overhanging the space and preventing much sunlight from reaching the growing space.

It starts as a 6-7 foot tall barrier of stinging nettles by the compost bin, runs behind the shed, and runs as a 6-foot wide strip of "thorny wilderness" from there to Walt's property line.

It's basically a "wasted space" held in place by a retaining wall, where the soil us super poor and rocky (I think it was filled in with "fill" from excavating for the house foundation), but that has not stopped a number of blackberries from taking over and mixing with the nettles and well as what I think may be wild salmonberries.

At one point, I had this cleared out enough to build the fencing for the chicken pen, but it took only a year for it to completely grow over again. In order for Tori's project to move forward, there's no doubt this mess has to be cleaned up again-- especially if we want to get sun into the former chicken pen area.

I have no idea how much work it is going to be, and I don't look forward to tackling all those nettles and thorny things, but it just has to be done.

Cleaning out the Chicken Run

Tori has taken it upon herself to start cleaning out the weeds and overgrowth in the former chicken pen.

It's still a bit of a thorn in our side that we purchased a house with a built-in chicken coop and signs that chickens were recently kept there... only to discover that we were not allowed to keep chickens, at all. I put a lot of effort into renovating the space and "eagle proofing" it so the chickens could run around outside and not get eaten... and it was all for nothing.

I think Sarah and I both lost some of our enthusiasm and just let the space go to seed, after the chickens left to go live with Lesta. We talked briefly about using the wire "roof" as an arbor of sorts, to perhaps grow grapes but nothing really came of it.

Meanwhile, there was lots of seed from the chicken feed, and it combined with the richness of chicken poop and what was already good soil to create a total thicket where there once were chickens. To make things worse, a bunch of very invasive and prickly blackberry vines are starting to take over, from the border between the pen and the property line. Whereas it's nice to have some greenery as a buffer between us and the neighbors, it has mostly been "junk" that has done well there.

The good news is that I got the lawn mowed. Grass always looks so nice and "tidy" when it is freshly mowed.

Of course, one of the benefits of dry weather is that it is so much easier to mow... instead of a several hour odyssey of pain, it took me about 90 minutes (including breaks) to the everything back into shape. There are still a lot of weeds in the lawn... they seem to move around a lot. One year it's clover here, next year the clover is gone, but can be found in a different area.

Of course, we didn't do the whole "weed and feed" thing this year... still, not sure how much good it did, last year. I will say, though, that it got rid of quite a bit of the moss in the side yard.