4.8 km to be exact

[dragonlady7]

I just had an ice cream sundae, but I walked 3 miles for it. Does that cancel it out or am I still fat?

I really cannot motivate myself to want to be thinner.

Oops, so much for exercising less. But I exercised more! So I filled one of the recommendations...

Right knee only hurts a little. It's springtime in the Village of Kenmore, to be sure. (We walked to Condrell's, since Anderson's is of dubious actually-open-ness.)
I have beaten my mother in that I have crocuses and snowdrops blooming, and hyacinths and daffodils thinking about it, while she only has crocuses sprouting. So go me.

I think I will get rid of all the grass in my backyard. My backyard is kind of stupid and dumb. It needs to all be a garden.
I wish I had time...

I did finish working on the compost heap-- there was new dirt in the bottom of it, so I took it out and put it into my garden. I am still considering moving the whole compost heap, but I don't know where to put it, and I can't think of a way of making it look nice. I'm sort of done with having it near the neighbor for her to enjoy since she's the one who insisted that we had to make it larger and more prominent, because she's an old bat. But whatever.
I'll ask Baby Sister, who is coming out this coming weekend. She hadn't told me, but Mom did, that she's taken a job in Chicago with their Prarie Redevelopment Something in the botanical gardens. Why not? Awesome.

Now I have a reason to visit Chicago, where I've been meaning to go but never have.

Comments

[heebiejeebie.livejournal.com]

My new backyard grass is ALL gonna go.
I need to either dig it up or till it in
I think it's gonna be tillin
I know weeds will come back up
but I don't think I can manage the diggin.
I've got 15 feet by 50 feet.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I don't have a tiller. To clear what I've cleared so far, I cut up and lifted out the sod, but it's so backbreaking... I used the sod chunks to build up a mound in the front yard where the ground is sunken from sewer work four or five years ago, and I gave up and just planted things in the sod. Weeds are coming up and I'm just going to have to think of some way to combat them. I used landscaping cloth last year and didn't like the look of it. This year I don't know what I'll do.
At the moment everything's underwater in the back. The yard has low spots that fill with water and right now it's just a rice paddy. I don't know where to start.
The whole yard, though, really, should go. I don't use it. I don't sit in it. I need to plant a little tree and permanently install better-engineered versions of the slowly-sinking stepping-stone paths I have in there right now, and I should convert it all to flowerbeds and vegetable gardens.

I just... don't have time. And cutting sod hurts so much after only a little while. It took me hours just to do the little bit where I planted four pepper plants and a tomato last year; it took me three days to do the space for the six raspberry plants. I have about 20 by 15 feet.

[heebiejeebie.livejournal.com]

I rented a tiller last year, and I'll do so again. It cost me 25 or 50 bucks at home depot (can't remember which). It was totally worth it.

It took me an hour or two to till up 16x16 feet. And it got down REALLY DEEP - about a foot or so. The soil was so friable (is that a word?) and loose and wonderful. I went about and picked ou the weeds and stones that were littered everywhere (many feet away - it sent them flying). The biggest "weed" in my old backyard was wild onions. For awhile, I didn't even have any regular grass, just wild onions that looked like slightly think grass. They were fun to pull up and throw at people.

My arms hurt some afterwards, because the thing was so powerful, bucking forwards so much. I can't believe it did it all myself, but I was exercising alot back then, and my arm strength was much more then than it is now. I might have my boyfriend do it this year. I won't need to use a tiller again unless I move, since I'm tilling up all the grass (don't have a front yard).

I do, however, have to find out if that little headstone in my backyard with the words "Edward Weber 1911-1913" is actually a dead baby in my backyard. It's right where I wanted to put my new blueberry bush.

Growing stuff in pots is a great thing if you don't want to battle weeds. I had alot of things in 15 gallon pots that I bought for 5 bucks each. I even have trees growing in them...

You could also try lasagna gardening aka sheet mulching. No digging, no tilling. Heard of it? I've heard great things.
http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf582744.tip.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheet_mulching

For a good mulch, try newspaper! 6-8 sheets, wetted down good so it doesn't fly away, and cover it with stones, wood chips, wood mulch (real cheap at amherst compost facility). Worms love to eat it too. The landscape fabric works, but it looks best if you put something else on top of it.

I'm not sure when I'm going to find time and the right weather to till. As soon as the soil dries out a little more, and if it's not raining that weekend, I'm going to rent the tiller. It's so tough right now with the move and all though. There is still so much stuff at the old house to bring over (so much CRAP).
I could come over and make my boy till up a few patches for you if you split the cost of the tiller with me. And made us some lemonade :-)

wow I write alot when it comes to gardening

[heebiejeebie.livejournal.com]

Oh I forgot to mention. I'm not actually using mulch to surpress weeds so much this year. I used cardboard in the garden paths last year, which worked great, but hello ugly?
I never have much of a problem with weeds in my garden beds themselves, because I use square foot gardening method. The plants are so close together that it smothers out weeds.
In the garden paths I'm going to plant dutch white clover, which never gets any higher than 6 inches (all of my garden beds are raised beds so it won't get any higher then them). It's pretty, soft on the feet, and fixes nitrogen (and the bunnies think it's yummy). It makes me wonder why anyone WANTS grass and thinks clover is a weed. If I see any grass growing, I'm going to pull it like a weed.
Grass begone! Lawnmower lies in disuse!