stubbed toes and mud pies

[flowerbug]

today it was foggy (aka what we call froggy) weather and later the fog burned off and i could go outside and play in a garden for a while. i had some bags of bean pods, wood ashes and some dirt to go into a garden so i decided to try something new and see how it went.

i first put the four bags down in four piles equally spaced in the area and then used a cultivator (four pronger is what i always called it before i heard the word cultivator) to spread them out evenly. i also had some buckets of wood ashes to go down in that same area so those were then spread out on top of the bean pods. then i had some dirt to move from a neighboring garden to fill in that same spot so i pretty much got done three things at once.

moving the dirt was mostly shovels tossed four to eight feet and i made sure to make the furthest pile had enough dirt to fill up to the other end, but i still had to carry about fifteen shovels to really do it right. then i put the shovel through the layers and turned it all but did not turn it multiple times.

then i used the cultivator to smooth it out a little bit and will turn it all again in the early spring when i go back through to weed and smooth things out that have had a chance to rot and settle through the winter.

there's usually some weeds to remove or bury but the later in the season i can keep a garden cleared of weeds the more likely there won't be too many weeds in there next spring.

raising this garden space up a little bit will help the beans i can plant in there do better but also the dirt that i moved from the other garden is more sandy soil and so that will help the more clay soil also drain a little better and have more air able to get down in there. and of course adding wood ashes and bean pods (and the reject beans that are mixed in there) will give the worms something to dance around and feed upon.

the rain this evening is perfect. it wets down any pods and the wood ashes, there's no wind so both the pods and wood ashes aren't going to blow around much at all.

i have another low area in that same garden to use up the rest of any bean pods i want to put out there and also more buckets of wood ashes. i'll really be able to see next season how these areas do in comparison to the other areas in the garden which aren't getting much done to them. i'll run a few rows of different types of beans through them and see what happens.

it's always interesting to try stuff in a more controlled manner than haphazard. the problems with what i did this past season was that in the neighboring garden where i'm removing some of the dirt had this large pile of dirt that i planted on top of and things looked like they were doing ok but i had no real control planting i could as as a comparison so it really didn't teach me anything and it was also not easy to weed or contend with - i really needed to move that dirt and level things out... and thus it means i made some progress today in about an hour and a half that will be, i hope, useful next season and give me better results in both gardens...

 

[flowerbug]

i get to go outside today to play in the dirt! i'm so excited. this may be the last decent weather day we have for a while so i hope to make the most of it.

i have a low spot in a garden that is begging for some bean pods, ashes and then being turned and mixed a bit after i put some more garden soil in there that needs to be moved from a neighboring garden. that should take about an hour or so.

then some weeding of the onion patch which is being taken over by speedwell. i don't know where all those seeds came from as they sure weren't growing in there last season!

and then on my task list is going under the house and checking on things, replacing the air filter on the furnace and getting the crawl space entrance ready by putting some bleach in a jar with holes in the lids so the fumes will keep the mice out. it works... nothing else has done this as well. the downside is that the fumes can also be corrosive to metal so i did need to repaint the entrance cover which was rusting...

i'm just finishing up the last of some bean pods from one of the bags. five more to go. getting there eventually. not too bad with most of them being Purple Dove beans (very easy to shell compared to many others).

 

[flowerbug]

all tasks finished, all goals for the day accomplished, felt good to get some exercise and fresh air.

glad to see that under the house in the crawlspace it looks like the common house spider invasion has calmed down. likely some other meaner spiders came along and restored the balance...

this week we have some rather raw days coming so i can go around and check for spiders again inside the house. it has been helping to do this once in a while, but there will always be spiders in here. there's way too many decorations and hiding places that Mom has around for me to get them all, plus the up high cathedral ceiling...

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

@flowerbug you are brave to check the crawl space. It just gives me the willies to even look in that area. I never use it way too many mice. Every once in awhile the cats have cleared them out.

This is the time of year spiders like to find warm shelter from the cold / wet winter approaching .
I use peppermint spray around windows and doors or any entrance spiders use . They seem to stay away from the areas sprayed, a lot less spiders to deal with and do we mention cob weds ? I use a hand held batter op small vacuum every once in awhile in winters .

 

[flowerbug]

the crawl space here is in pretty good condition. it is pea gravel spread over sand and then black plastic on top of the pea gravel. there are no mice down there or anywhere else that i can tell.

i was glad to find out today when i took the cover off that lets me get at the metal door which then lets me into the crawl space there wasn't a single mouse dropping in there. plenty of dead pill bugs, but no mice droppings. so i was good with that.

when i had to last deal with mice down in there it had been only one mouse and it was dead inside the jar of bleach i'd left in there to discourage mice. i did have to sweep up some mouse nerds that time, but since then i've checked once in a while and not had any mice down there. which is good. the bleach jar was recharged today and it will be good for months. the fumes are heavy and sink and there is very little air movement in there so unless it gets very windy the air is not being exchanged much at all in that space. so this works as an ok method for keeping them out. i've tried using mint oils but they've not kept them out.

the next steps are for the snows to start flying and then i can see tracks in the snow around the house to see if any mice are trying to take up residence. last fall i had to evict some that were trying to get their nests established in the gravel under the cement and rocks we use along the bottom of the wall.

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

@flowerbug our crawl space is set up like yours except the walls and ceilings have insulation. The only reason I know we have mice is an electrician had to install electrical wiring for the bathroom and he crawled from the crawl space opening across the entire crawl space to the opposite end of crawl space door.
Poor guy. He did a good job .

 

[flowerbug]

i always wear clothes that i plan on washing because by the time i'm back out i'm rather dusty. getting the house well sealed up to keep out mice was one of the things i first did when they had just built the place. note the difference though between sealing up the crawl space was very much a separate issue compared to sealing up the walls and the garden shed (which took me almost 20 years to get done at last). when i was staying here the first winter there were so many mice in the walls that i could not sleep. i had to trap them for weeks to calm things down. at that time i took it upon myself to go down in the crawlspace and to make sure that any gaps between the crawl space and the house upstairs was sealed or covered with hardware cloth. so we have never had a problem with mice down there or with mice getting from down there to up here. any mice down there do not live long. i've found one or two completely dried out. forced air heat and the sump pump they won't survive and no other food at all as long as they can't get in and out.

the walls however, they were able to crawl around in that and quite a few times they almost were able to get in from the walls into the house around the garage (which has the shed attached to it and that was not sealed up well until i put up plywood on the walls and ceiling and tiled the whole thing). i foam sealed what i could but that did not stop them entirely and i'm pretty sure they chewed some wires in the garage that have never been found or repaired. it may also be possible that the wiring was not done that well to begin with... p.s. don't ever use plastic boxes for wiring, those things break too easily and are junk.

i may have to check things out this morning, i'm not sure what noise i'm feeling or hearing but i want to be sure it isn't coming from down there and since i have to go out and take the trash out i can do it right now... it's ok, i'm not sure what i'm hearing, perhaps someone's generator or exterior pump of some kind in the neighborhood... dunno.

 

[digitS']

...



What did you find ..?

 

[flowerbug]

nothing, things are ok under there just how i left them yesterday. i dunno what the noise i'm hearing is coming from. i put on music and went back to sleep for a while... waking up at 3:30am wasn't in my plans at all.

 

[flowerbug]

i'm continuing to chip away at the bean shelling but i also need to work on some other projects and chores so it is not going as fast as i'd like.

the bag of beans i'd finished yesterday was really a disappointment, but the garden those pods came from was the worst. glad to say that the next bag i started on has been much better so far.

i poked at the website a little last week and some of the parts of it are getting rather creaky with age. they need to be either refreshed or removed and that isn't counting some pages i need to redo completely somehow. i may be able to get this done sometime this winter. first though as soon as i get all the beans shelled and somewhat sorted and combined i can get pictures taken and posted before diving into more complicated fixes and updates that may take more research.

otherwise the gardens are mostly as done as they are going to get with the ground getting frozen and thawed out again as the weather does weather things (fluctuates ).

sometime this week i should get the worms taken care of and finish up another project so we can get it back to the person who dropped it off. yes, i have pictures of that too. i'll get more before it goes away. a bench that needed some tile put on the seat. it looks nice so far, but it needs to be grouted...