Critters In My Yard

Once again, I had the best of intentions to stay on top of back yard maintenance over the winter, and once again, I did not. As a result, I have a hideous oxalis problem. This stuff only grows int he rainy season, but if you turn your back on it, it will grow several feet tall before you know it. The worst part is that letting it grow helps it feed the bulbs that will produce next year's crop. Three winters of neglect have given this weed a hefty head start.

Two weekends ago I made a trip to the garden center after weeding the veggie bed area. I worked on it for a few hours and barely made a dent in the problem. I thought I might need to call in the big guns (read: chemicals) to tackle the rest of the yard. I don't like using chemicals, but clearly the pulling isn't working since the one area I've really worked on controlling over the past three spring seasons is still having problems.

The gal at Wegman's (I swear they are the BEST garden center around) told me that my best bet is to pull the weeds EVERY day and the earlier I catch them, the less chance they have to produce and feed more bulbs. Maybe after a few years the problem might be under control. My response was, "Um, I have a job. And a life. What are my other options?" Next in line is a technique called sheet mulching. this is where you mow it all down as short as your mower will go. Then you lay sheets of cardboard or lots of layers of newspaper down on the ground and make sure it is overlapping well so that there are no cracks through which this stuff can grow. Then you spread 1" of compost and another 1-2" of mulch. the idea is that it totally smothers the sprouts and if it can't grow leaves that can conduct photosynthesis, it can't produce and feed baby bulbs. After several months, you come back and roto-till the whole yard and--voila! perfectly fertile, weed free soil. The only catch is that in severe infestations it may need to be repeated.

I pondered this and thought that maybe I will pass on that effort this season and start the sheet mulching in the fall when this icky stuff would be starting to grow again. Meanwhile, I kept pulling the weeds. In so doing, I discovered that my yard is not only home to several types of salamanders (I have seen and identified Arboreal and California Slender), but to a toad/frog as well:
Since I had disrupted his home in the patch of oxalis, I built a little toad house out of flower pot (turned it on its side and stuffed a bunch of leaves and such into and over it). i hope he intends to stay and start a family.

I also noticed that I now have a healthy worm population. The past two seasons I've thought my worm population was deficient and contemplated adding some to my veggie bed to help improve the soil condition. Nice to know that is not needed this season.

In any event, these three data points reminded me that avoiding the widespread use of chemicals is the right choice. The herbicides might have an unintentional negative impact on the ecosystem supporting my beneficial creatures, so I'll stick to weed pulling for now. The jury is still out on whether or not to do the sheet mulching now, or wait until the fall.

I'm Not Completely Slacking...

Forgive me, dear readers, it's been 8.5 months since my last posting. The later half of 2009 was filled with even more challenges than the first half, and though progress at The Dump continued, blogging did not. I will quickly bring you up to speed.

Garden:
My crops got off to a good start, but took a hit due to a prolonged absence in August. An automated sprinkler system is on the agenda for this year, even though that makes it difficult to utilize my rain barrels (which, BTW, are already full for this season). Hmmm. I'll need to ponder a solution for that. However, I did learn that zucchini and yellow squash are abundant producers, even with minimal attention, tomatoes are not so forgiving of inconsistent watering, I needed about five sugar snap pea plants instead of one, cucumbers and melons are not something I will try again and corn is not worth the space it takes when I can get big juicy ears from the farmer's market (my six stalks produced three ears, all of which were about 4" long).

Painting:
Well, I got the front finished, and a bit of each side (the bits that are visible form the street!), and that's about it. Definitely need to pick up the pace this coming summer.

Kitchen:
There has been A LOT of progress in the kitchen, which of course pleases me to no end. after all, the kitchen is the proverbial heart of the home, and as most of you know, I do like to spend my free time cooking and baking.

Along the way in The Dump's history, someone thought peel and stick vinyl floor tile would make a good backsplash behind the sink. You can sort of see it in the first photo of this post. That was a lazy attempt to avoid installing new window casing trim after pulling out what I suspect was some funky 50's tile backsplash. Well, those damn vinly tiles kept popping off, so finally, in a fit of irritation, I started to yank them off. However, that revealed that the self adhesive was not enough and so the installer used some construction adhesive, leaving a gooey mess that could not be removed, even with the strongest solvents. Unable to decide what to do with that, I just lived with it. For a year. I finally decided that some beadboard paneling would work nicely:

You can see some of the adhesive on the side walls because I couldn't (still haven't) figured out how to tackle getting the paneling to play nicely with the irregular gap between the counter and the wall. I decided not to paint it blue (little color swatch at lower left of window), and instead painted it the bright white of the trim and what will eventually be on the cabinets. Please note the lovely new trim on the window. Yes, I can rock the miter box.

However, the biggest improvement in the kitchen to date is the new floor I installed during my five weeks of furlough in Nov/Dec:

I ultimately want to salvage the hardwood under the two layers of hideous 70's vinyl tile and rocking 50's sheet lino (see below for the detailed photo of the layers), but I couldn't handle removing both layers at this time, unsure if the HW is even salvageable. But I just COULD NOT take any more of the ugly yellow and brown-ness, so I opted for some cheap and cheerful faux stone vinyl tile, adhered right to the 50's sheet.

OTHER:
I did some super-badass reglazing of some windows that were in bad shape, but that doesn't have much visible wow factor, so I have no photos. Suffice to say that I did feel very proud of myself for accomplishing that project and will be attempting further window repairs in the spring.

While handing out candy on Halloween, I met some neighbors for the first time (Jana, husband whose name I cannot recall, and their A-dorable little boy, Joe). They live across the street and a few houses down in a super-cute house with a very tidy yard. Jana made my day by telling me "Your garden always looks so nice with all the flowers you have, and your tulips last spring were spectacular." Little do they realize I am plotting to overthrow them for the "cutest house on the block" award. However, since this is what my next door neighbor's front yard looks like, I don't think I'll have much competition: