Showing posts with label Mowing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mowing. Show all posts

Monday, October 31, 2022

Mowing The Leaves

So, yesterday, I was ready to mow the leaves to add to the compost bin.  It went easily, though I thought the mower would shred the leaves more than it did.  It acted more like a vacuum cleaner that a shredder.   I expected some bulk but not so much.  But to avoid carrying the collection bag to the compost bin every 5 minutes, I brought out a big trash barrel to collect it in and drag that to the compost bin.  

A path of mowing from the barrel and back filled the bag.  The barrel held 3 bags.  So I would bring the barrel to the bin, dump it, and spread it evenly (about 6").  Then added kitchen waste from the other bin on top.  Then added 4 buckets of the grinded tree roots on that.

Repeat, repeat, repeat.  Literally, 3 layers of each!  I filled the 2nd bin to the top.  At 4'x4'x4", it should heat up nicely even over Winter.  


The 1st bin (where I had been dumping kitchen scraps for 2 years) was almost emptied.  There is some stuff left, but because of tree roots, I have to get the last 6" loose with my mini electric tiller.



So, all in all, it turned out great!  It has been a while since I collected enough plant material to fill either bin.  I'll check to see if the temperature is rising in a couple weeks (it takes a while to get going).  I might have usable compost by Summer.




Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Mowing The Lawn

Sometimes mowing the lawn is not so easy.  In early April, I pulled up some chicken wire and laid it to the side of the garden.  I wedged up some 4'x4' posts to and set them on the chicken wire.  On top of that has come a series of dug-up carpet (still solid after 25 years) black plastic, landscaping fabric, and at the lowest level there was synthetic burlap (also un-degraded).  I can't imagine I ever used some of that stuff.

The removal of all that stuff has been brutal!  Each layer has required spade work under each layer to pry it up then yank it away from the intruding vine roots by hand a few inches at a time.  Each exposed layer has had tree roots running through from the neighbor's yard.  It terrible!

But the grass was growing throught the chicken wire and I had to do something about it.  I pulled the chicken wire up, and it was like ripping asphault off the driveway.  Each 25' piece took 15 minutes of hard pulling up from the grass.  And then there were all the previously pruned pieces of thorny rose bushes and tree trimminings.

It took 45 minutes before I could even mow the overgrown lawn area.

And then it took multiple mowings over the overgrown area to get them down to height.  The grass won't like that.  The rule is never remove more that a 1/3 of a grass height.  I removed 4/5ths .  I'll have to tend to them kindly for a few months.

I am so far behind this year...

Looking Up

 While I was outside with The Mews, I laid back and looked up.  I thought the tree branches and the clouds were kind of nice. Nothing import...