The Rest of It!

Another early morning start -- it was barely light enough to see outside, but the temp was about 74 and it was humid, so while it was relatively cool, I wouldn't call it cool.  Still, it won't get any cooler today.  Turning under the other bed took about the same amount of time as the first one -- an hour.  Doing the amendments took considerably less, although I followed almost all of the same procedures.  The only thing I didn't do is bring in some compost to seed the top.  I guess one thing that saved time was that I didn't have to haul all the grass clippings from the rear.  The pile of grass was already starting to decompose and I decided there were probably already enough microorganisms in there to do the job.  No more chicken wire to spare, so I'll just have to hope the cats leave it alone.

Someone asked me to show a photo of the entire yard, to put the work I've done into perspective.  Here's a photo my real estate agent sent last November, so you can see that there was absolutely nothing here but grass.  The blue car is long gone, along with the pile of junk at the rear of that yard.

Here's how it looked last night, with the grass pile still in place.  My property lines are a little hard to see, but look to the right of the compost piles a few feet until you see a little line of bushes -- that's the line on that side.  None of the bushes are in my yard.  On the left side, just above the tomato plants, is a brownish line of grass clippings from the neighbor's mower, and that's about where that line is.

And, while it's embarrassing to show the clutter behind my own home (I've got zero storage room, folks!), this is where the gardens are in relation to the house.  One of these days, I hope to put some kind of hard scape between the house and the gardens. It's interesting to see that the bed I turned this morning is not nearly as high as the first one.  Did I put more soil from the raised bed?  Did I use more grass clippings?  Hard to say.  There will be plenty more added to both these, however, so I'm not gonna worry about any of it right now.

I may have found a new handyman, and a good one.  Yesterday I walked outside the store to the mailbox and saw a van in our lot that said something like "Super Handyman Husband" on it.  Back inside, I found the owner and talked to him for awhile, got his card.  He has a good website, a good background in remodeling, and can do just about anything that wouldn't require a pro in that field: serious electrical and plumbing, etc. I know he'll charge me more than James did, but there are times when it's about getting the job done, not how much it costs.  Anyway -- he's somebody to try.

Lots of little errands to run today, but mostly I'm going to just try to stay cool.  I've had my exercise for the day.