What's Eating Up My Time At The Moment

[Bob Schroeck]

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What you're looking at is about ten cubic yards each of hardwood mulch and (under the blue tarp) compost, filling up most of my driveway.  My after-hours job for as long as it takes is to spread all this in selected parts of the yard -- mostly in the front. 

Last year we had the grass and topsoil removed around the twin maple trees on either side of the driveway (one of which you can see next to the car) and replaced with richer topsoil and a layer of mulch, as part of a program to save them from dying on us.  These two small mountains are this year's installment of the process.  You can't quite see it because it blends in with the pile in front of it, but the visible tree and its mulched area has already been dealt with (so the piles really aren't 10 cubic yards anymore).  In comparison, the little grey patch to the left of the car is what last year's mulch looks like now.

Anyway, if anyone wants to know why I'm not a) increasing byte counts on various works, b) playing the revived City of Heroes, or c) anything else that I might do in the evenings, it is because I am either a) performing back-breaking labor or b) recovering from back-breaking labor by drugging myself and sitting in a HoMedics massage chair.

[classicdrogn]

Well that's a lot of bull shit! Assuming your compost is moo-doo, anyway

Good luck getting it done in a timely manner, and make sure not to overdo it and pull your back or something. Slow and steady and all that rot.

[Bob Schroeck]

Well, this year I'm wearing a proper back support belt. It makes a heckuva difference compared to how I felt after doing this stuff last year.

[Wiregeek]

Nibble nibble nibble! We'll see ya when we see ya

[Inquisitive Raven]

Well that's a lot of bull shit! Assuming your compost is moo-doo, anyway

Well, if it's moo-doo, I expect that half of it is cow shit.

[Bob Schroeck]

Actually, I don't think it's got manure of any gender in it.

[hazard]

Compost shouldn't. Compost should be 100% rotten plant matter, mixed with some dirt.

[Bob Schroeck]

The piles are getting smaller... after I finish up tonight's position reassignment tasks maybe I'll remember to take a photo to show the progress.

[Wiregeek]

Nibble nibble!

[Bob Schroeck]

I'm going to have to have a serious talk with the landscapers who made the piles in our driveway. Last night alone, while filling up my wheelbarrow with compost, I found rocks, a seven-inch nail bent in the middle, what appear to be several 2- to 3-inch pieces of copper rod, broken glass, segments of insulated wiring, and pieces of white plastic. The compost is supposed to have been screened, so I'm more than a little annoyed.

[Bob Schroeck]

Okay... between more rain than anticipated and working past sunset, I haven't had a chance to take another pic before now.  But here we are, from a slightly different angle, so you can see where I've been working on the much larger area around the other maple.  And if you compare the edges of the piles with the edges of the driveway, you can see my progress.



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[Bob Schroeck]

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This is actually from a few days ago, and there's actually even more done around the left maple, and the piles are just a bit smaller now.  And I'm coming to the conclusion that Peggy seriously over-ordered.  I know she wants to do some of the beds around the house with what's left over, but honestly, I'm really thinking we're going to have more left over than we'll be able to use.

[Bob Schroeck]

Ten months later.

I didn't do as much as often as I could have, especially when the summer got really hot. And after that the weather turned too cold too fast to finish everything come the fall. There are still piles in the driveway, but at least I can bring the car right up to that little flat juniper in the lower left of the pic right above this message.

The mulch is almost all gone. The first time I get to go back to this task, it'll be used up.

The problem is the compost. Peg definitely over-ordered it. I have no idea where in the yard I'm going to put the excess.

When I get a chance I'll post a current pic of the piles so everyone can mock me for laziness.

EDIT: At least Peggy doesn't want to refresh the mulch this year. She's planning on planting meadow plants/flowers there now, figuring two years of mulch and one of compost have conditioned the soil just right.

[Labster]

If you have too much dirt/rocks/gravel, post it on Craigslist for free. Someone will come and take it. DIY landscapers always need to obtain or give away raw materials like this.

[Bob Schroeck]

I hadn't thought of that. Thanks, Brent.

Now to convince Peggy it's a good idea.

[Bob Schroeck]

And here's what it looks like now:


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As it so happens, not only did I do around the maples, I also did the entire front bed from one side of the house to the other, and about 80% of the side bed where we have three flowering bushes whose name I can never remember and a multi-trunked birch tree.  When I finally return to this task, which given the weather might be much sooner than I anticipated, I will finish the side bed, then do up a ring around the ash tree in the back which also got a much smaller version of the grass-and-topsoil strip treatment two years ago and hasn't yet profited from Peggy's purchase.  We also have a bed of hibiscus which I could probably give a layer of compost, too.

Which will still leave us with, by my estimate, about a cubic yard of compost, or 10% of the original supply.

[robkelk]

... three flowering bushes whose name I can never remember ...

Might I suggest "Who", "What", and "I Don't Know"?

[Bob Schroeck]

They're Spirea! Peggy just told me.

[classicdrogn]

But did they get safe to third base?

[Bob Schroeck]

<rimshot>

[Bob Schroeck]

And whaddaya know, I had time, energy and cooperative weather today, and actually did a fair amount:


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I've finally used up the last of the mulch, and have laid down another 10 wheelbarrows' worth of the compost in various deserving parts of the yard.

[Dartz]

If this was me, the mulch would've just ended up as a new drive-top lawn or garden feature

[Bob Schroeck]

Heh. If I'd had my druthers... but Peggy had other plans.

[Bob Schroeck]

Aaaaaand finally I can call this job complete.

Not because I finally used up the alleged compost.  There's still maybe four or five wheelbarrows' worth still in the driveway, covered with a disintegrating blue tarp.

But because...  Well, it appears I never mentioned it here, but between Christmas and New Year's 2021, the sewer line running from our house to the street broke in two places -- one out in the street near where it fed into the municipal system, and one in our yard.  The town fixed the first, and we had to hire someone to fix the second.

And the guy we hired left the yard somewhat less attractive than it was when he started.  Among other things, his excavation brought up a whole lot of sterile subsoil laden with shale, which got spread on the top of the refilled trench, leaving a good chunk of the mulch-and-compost ring I'd put around the left-hand maple pretty much bare ground with rocks.  Oh, and he didn't properly underfill the sidewalk slab he had to move for the trench, and when it went back it ended up with one end sunk six inches lower than the adjacent slab.

We ended up hiring a landscaper to come in, scrape off and haul away the sterile rocky soil, replace it with topsoil, seed it, and fix the sidewalk.  So this is what things look like now, complete with weeds that encroached on the former mulch layer in the early part of the spring:


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As for the last few wheelbarrows of "compost", we've finally decided we're going to use it to even out some uneven parts of the back yard.  When that will happen... I'm not sure.  But I'd like to do it before the July LBI excursion.

[Bob Schroeck]

And I did. This afternoon, I took advantage of an unseasonably cool and dry day and finally cleared away the pile under the blue tarp (and threw away the tarp). I filled in several dips/holes in the backyard that were annoying to mow over/past, and I spread the rest on the slope behind our shed, which Peg insisted was eroding but looked no more eroded than any other part of the slope in the backyard. Thank god the damned thing is finally done and I never have to post an update in this thread again.

Oh, and the grass is coming in very nicely on the front lawn.

Now comes deciding whether a new fence or the foundation for Peg's greenhouse is the next task.