Category: Yard Work

Any work done on the yard

Mowing

After yesterday’s weed-pulling-bonanza I decided to tackle the second massive job: mowing. I’ve been keeping the front of the house trim but the back of the house has gotten out of control. There’s just something so unappealing about mowing what I know is all weed. Ug. Anyhow… it took hours but I got all of it mowed and bagged. Total between the front and back I produced another 7 bags. Won’t our trash collectors be happy when they pull up to my house and find enough trash for a small apartment building. Ug.

After mowing and getting cleaned up I headed to Home Depot and purchased touchup paint (we’re finally getting our windows painted!) and yard-staples for the weed barried I laid down yesterday. Right now I’ve just got bags of trash sitting on top of it. When that is taken I’ll need something to prevent it from blowing away. Turns out that a box of 75 costs considerably less than I would have spent on the packs of staples so I went for it and will just leave them in the garage until my next weed barrier project.

Pulling weeds

I decided this weekend the yard needed some attention. First and foremost I felt like the car-park out back had been taken over by weeds and needed rescue. I went out this morning and started pulling. After 2 hours in the roughly six square feet I had cleared all of it and gotten it bagged. I covered the triangle with weed barrier left over from last year’s project out front. My hope is that will give me a break from weeding until I have the chance to decide what to do with it. It will also be nice, once the trash is collected (I produced 6 bags full) to be able to park back there. This will also make sukkah building time easier.

Watering

I got the new sprinkler installed. It’s nothing special but it should do what I want. I had a little bit of trouble getting it working at first (what a surprise… I hate this things!) but after playing with it for a few minutes I was able to get it working. 20-minutes per side and didn’t wake anybody!

Watering

Before leaving for the weekend I brought the basil in and watered it. I pinched off a few flowers that were growing on it. I hope it does well while we’re away. I also hope it rains or at least isn’t too hot so our grass is still green when we return. Not sure when I’ll get around to it but our grass looks like it needs to be cut. Bad timing I guess. Ug. It’ll have to wait. Finally, I went to the hardware store to take back the sprinkler and replace it with something like what I Had before. I’ll try it out when we return.

Watering

I set the new sprinkler out this morning and it was so noisy that it woke Dana. It’s definitely going back. I’d rather have a quiet sprinkler that soaks my lawn in the 40 minutes I run it than one that pounds the house and doesn’t get much water to any one spot. How frustrating! I did leave it out for 40 minutes this morning. I hope that’s enough.

Watering

I went to the hardware store and picked up a new sprinkler. It’s one of those pulse sprinklers that make that ticking sound like you see on golf courses. The entire unit is metal which is annoying because it looks too valuable to leave out but which should stand up to vandalism (though if I don’t leave it out, when will it have to stand up to anything?). I put it out and adjusted the spray and found that I could hit the entire front yard without moving it. It wasn’t easy to adjust but I eventually got it adjusted. I checked on it after 20 minutes and there were still spots that looked like they were barely hit with water so I let it run for an additional 20 and checked it again and then an additional 10 and then gave up. I’m thinking I’m going to take it back and replace it with the sort I had before. I may give it one more try.

I also noticed that the basil needs more water. I’m thinking with the heat and dryness, once a week is insufficient. I’ll start watering more regularly and not leave it out in the sun as much as the websites suggested and see how it does.

Vandal!

When I came home from work today I found that someone has vandalized my sprinkler. It wasn’t the best sprinkler in the world but someone clearly came onto my property and broke it. It looks like someone snapped it clean in half. They also moved the hose. It almost looks like they didn’t like the fact that I leave my hose in a coil on my front walk. There’s money I didn’t want to have to spend right now! How frustrating!

Basil plants

I found, after a quick search of the net, that Basil plants watered once a week thrive. Further, that basil plants like a lot of sun. After I purchased my basil plants and potted them in the potter Dana bought for my birthday a year ago, I figured water them once  a week and put them in a place that gets lots of sun. I apparently was wrong. Denver is such a dry place that once a week wasn’t enough water. After watering them over the weekend, I figured I could wait until the following weekend to water them again. This evening I looked at the basil plants and they were completely wilted (a dramatic change from this morning when I saw new growth popping up). I immediately brought them inside and gave them a drink. The soil was bone dry and each of the three little pots (which are about 1 and 1/2 cups if I had to estimate) took nearly 1/2 cup of water. The soil soaked it up. We’ll see how they do with a day out of the sun.

Watering

I’ve been trying to do the every other day thing. We had some rain over the weekend which helped but since then we’ve had thunder and at most a tiny drizzle for a couple of minutes but not enough to replace actual watering. As a result, it looks like this week will be an actual watering week (though only every other day). 20-minutes per side this morning.