Today was the only day this week that was forecast to not have precipitation, so we were determined to try to spend at least an hour outside. I know that seems a too small goal, but we have a lot going on besides just the gardens. In the past, I’ve thought a bit too big, and then when some bits aren’t done at the right time, others get held up, and then you feel overwhelmed and annoyed and go watch anime or kdrama for a few hours instead of anything productive. (That was our go to brain candy reality escape last year more often than not, I realized while writing this, despite our many interests.)
Last year we rescued a 36′-ish roll of not still in perfect condition coated wire fencing from our local transfer station that I happened to spot on top of one of their long dumpsters. We were there to pick up our rain barrel we had paid for at City Hall. The imperfection was the weld had broke on a few of the overall wire crosses, so the grid wasn’t perfect. The overall roll had also been jostled about a bit, so some sections were squished too Easy fixes.
We immediately rolled the bulk of it out across our 50′ wide lot to see how bad it was overall, and except for one short bit of an end that was a pulled apart mess, it was a great rescue find. After we rolled it out, I got a bit obsessed in the reality that the property had a very good gardener at one point. I was worried about disturbing anything other than the mechanical clean up for quite a while, and the fencing–still lain out in the yard–got a bit grown through and over. [Note: if you don’t have to worry overly much about letting your yard run wild when you first move in, I highly recommend this. I will write a post about this more specifically later this month.]
Yet after some of the first round of growth started revealing themselves, we put some of the fencing to use last year around our above ground compost pile which had been uncontained and easy for local animals to dig and feast upon prior. It’s behind our garage, facing south, but also sheltered by our neighbor’s conifers.
To give an idea of where we put it the compost, because I somehow never took a straight out image of the compost pile, here’s a shot from late May of last year that at least shows in part the general area. The view is facing East, you can see what a glorious mess the “garage bed” is starting to become, and the compost area I’m talking about will later be to the south side of the garage (right hand), with that white plastic chain strewn ranch fence post showing the back end as that fencing (we think) is also the neighbors. We’re due for snow again, but eventually I’ll get a photo of the current state of our heap. It’s nothing glorious, but that’s kind of the point. Isn’t it good to see not so great, and hopefully learn how we fix it over time? *nods more to self than anyone*
We had intended to mark out one area that we planned to only put leaves in for pure leaf mould, but we didn’t because reasons. Today, we remedied that–better late than never!
I realized as my all thumbs partner was of zero use in gathering supplies together for this project until we got to the “grab a rake” part, that perhaps I should do a dead basic how to post for others like him that had never done such before, and also for folks that don’t know the difference between wire cutters and tin snips. (Hint: both can get the job done, but one is really better than the other for cutting coated wire in particular.)
Time will tell.
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