October 8th, 2009

Day 8: Modular Garden Fencing Instructable

I’ve wanted to write something for instructables.com for about a year now. And once I decided on a fitting project for the site, I’ve pretty much just wanted to write and publish the following…. I haven’t been able to make myself do it, however, until this post-a-day endeavor forced me to.

I wasn’t involved ’til about 80% through this design/build (as it was a birthday surprise). Kate, Kevin, and Dad helmed this garden-protection solution and I think they did a great job. I hope I’ve described how you can replicate it in a clear, step-by-step manner.

I am going to provide an embed of my article now, in the interest of “test-driving” this online resource, though I’m not a big fan of Instructable’s embed interface. I’d suggest visiting the Instructables page, or maybe you’ll find this embed more bearable than I do:

Modular Garden Fencing – More DIY How To Projects

Tags: 14 posts, DIY, garden, House, online - No Comments »

April 23rd, 2009

Changing of the Gard’

It was hard, tearing up one of our healthiest patches of lawn, but that’s how it goes when you’re planning a sizeable garden. I’ve wanted to try my hand at gardening for many years now, and this is the first spring that I’ve had my own plot of land on which to do it. The terrain in the backyard is basically ideal. Flat and free of obstacles, with lots of exposure to the sun. There’s only one small, minor attribute our landscape possess that could present a teeny-tiny, miniscule, little problem. This would be a type of soil that isn’t well-suited to growing plants. As is the case with just about every home in central North Carolina, our lot was laid out on top of a giant slab of red clay.

I took this issue to my organic vegetable growing class. Yes, determined to not half-ass this thing, I am taking an organic vegetable growing class through the NC community college system. It’s been a great experience for many reasons. We meet on the instructor’s farm and talk in detail about how he plants and harvests and deals with the weather — I’ve been visiting relatives’ farms all my life yet I had no sense for how one is run until now. We go over the more eco-friendly alternatives to “mainstream” gardening practices like using commercial fertilizer and pesticides. Also I’m taking it with my friends JonScott and Rob, so I get to do some male-bonding with those dudes as we tip-toe into the fields and nurturingly place delicate seedlings in the ground alongside 15 middle-aged women. Oh, and we all get to bring our personal gardening quandaries in and completely derail whatever our lesson for the day was supposed to be by bombarding the teacher with questions.

Asking what one would do about dense, sienna-like substrate was my first step towards soil-improvement. My second step was to follow the teacher’s advice (and test my truck’s suspension) by filling my truckbed with composted horse manure at his farm and carting it home. Thirdly, I spent some time staring at my mound of horse shit and then at the 200-square-foot area in the yard that I figured got the most sun. Finally, I faced-up to what I had to do and started “double-digging.”

I’m not sure that double-digging is a particularly well-known or widely-practiced technique. I don’t know of anyone else who’s tried it and our teacher has yet to mention it in our class. I was slightly nervous about doing it because double-digging takes a significant investment labor-wise and it uses a crap-load of, well, crap. Going through it all and not getting significantly positive results would be, as we say in the gardening world, “super lame.” I took the plunge because, from the moment I discovered this process in a gardening book that JonScott let me borrow, it made too much sense to ignore. Dig trenches a foot down in your garden area, one at a time, loosen the soil at the bottom of the trench another foot down, add a two-to-three inch layer of manure, and cover said trench with the soil you produce upon digging the next trench. You’ve got your adding of organic matter, your softening, and your aerating. Can you look me in the eye and tell me that’s not serious soil-fortification…? Didn’t think so.

So after 14 sweat-drenched hours (spread over two days) and a few helpers popping in and out, my garden was double-dug. I tossed my last shovel-full of clay, which incidentally felt equal in weight to an engine block, onto the last trench late Saturday afternoon.

Kevin — whose contributions to the work-time conversation consisted of “(shovel shovel shovel)…why don’t we just go get the tiller and run it over this?…(pause)…(shovel shovel shovel)…why aren’t we just running the tiller over all this again?…(shovel shovel shovel)” — then had his time to shine as we threw the remainder of the horse manure on top of the disheveled heap and tilled it up. By nightfall I had the five 3×10′ beds I’d been planning.

I wish there were time to get a soil test (which our state’s extension office does for free), but the wait time is several weeks at this point and it’s planting weather right now.

The crops I’ll be growing, any day now will be:

• Sweet Peppers (transplanted)
• Hot Peppers (transplanted)
• Tomatoes (transplanted)
• Lima Beans (from seed)
• Pole Beans (from seed)
• Summer Squash (from seed)
• Sweet Corn (from seed)
• Cucumbers (from seed)

Yep, it’s time to get going! Just as soon as I get something to stick in the ground! I bought certified-organic seeds online two weeks ago and just found out that they are all on back-order. I’ve since sucked it up and put in an emergency order with a place that I’ve heard good things about that doesn’t carry organic stuff, thus eliminating what I like to call the “damn hippy dreadlocked Whole Foods people who buy up everything factor.”

First gardening lesson learned the hard way? Reserve those seeds early.

Tags: DIY, garden, Household - 1 Comment »

November 11th, 2008

Party Like It’s 1959

Ever since we decided to buy this house, with it’s abundant lawn, I’ve been mildly obsessed with the notion of getting a push-mower. The push-mower is not a highly-regarded tool. Those who had to use them in the past, such as my parents, describe them in a manner normally reserved for receiving unmedicated dental drilling.

You always hear that:

1. Push-mowers are hard to push.
2. Push-mowers take forever to mow with.
3. Push-mowers are hard to push.
4. Push-mowers are really heavy.
5. Push-mowers are really hard to push.

My reasons for wanting one, however, were carefully considered and diverse:

1. Push-mowers may be hard to push, but I work a desk job all day and could use the exercise.
2. Push-mowers may take a little more time to mow with, but our lot is only a quarter-of-an-acre in size anyway.
3. Push-mowers don’t pollute.
4. Push-mowers don’t require gasoline. (Ok, gas has come down in price, and the amount of gas I’d use when I mow is insignificant compared to what I use running errands in my car every few weeks, but I’m going to default to: every little bit helps!)
5. Gas-mowers are not something that I’m terribly familiar with. Growing up, our yard consisted of trees, pinestraw, and dirt. Every few years, usually in the fall, Dad wouldn’t feel like raking. On those occasions he would ask me to get out his aging gas-mower — which he owned because he had previously maintained a grass-covered backyard in Michigan — and run it directly over the sticks and leaves on the ground. This was always a foreign and somewhat frightening experience for me.
6. Gas-mowers are always breaking down. For a probable explanation as to why I’ve seen a lot of this, reread the last two sentences of the point above. Though I don’t think it was just that gas-mower. Consider all the times you’ve seen someone pull and pull and pull that start cord, then finally plop down on a log, winded and sweat-drenched, while the dead motor continues to sit there defiantly. Granted I’ve had limited exposure, but I see the two-stroke engine as a poorly-conceived system: too simple to run cleanly, quietly, or reliably, but not simple enough that problems can be diagnosed and repaired with enough daylight left to actually do your mowing (or chainsawing or weed-wacking).
7. Push-mowers are odd. As 99.9% of the population doesn’t bother with it anymore, push-mowing is the kind of thing that fringe weirdos seem to get into, exclusively so they can talk your ear off about it when they get you cornered at parties. In other words: I am the ideal candidate for it. “There is room for push-mowing in my life,” I thought. “Right between bike-commuting and homebrewing.”

So before we moved into our house I googled “push mowing” and found several “fan-sites” where people defensively rant about the benefits of using them.

Here, in a nutshell, is what they all say :

1. Push-mowers are no harder to push than your average gas-mower.
2. Push-mowers don’t pollute.
3. Push-mowers have two screws. These make important adjustments. You must set them properly.
4. Push-mowers are quiet as a mouse.
5. Push-mowers “clip” instead of “tear,” so it’s better for your grass than a gas-mower.
6. Push-mowers must be used often. You must get to the grass before the it gets high.
7. Push-mowers are hard to push, but you could use the exercise, right?
8. Push-mowers have made great strides in the past 40 years. Don’t believe old people, such as your parents, when they tell you that push-mowing sucks. All they know is the old models they grew up with.
9. Push-mow now, or you are the spawn of Satan.

Well, I was probably days from giving in to the hype and ordering a push-mower, when I mentioned wanting one to Steph’s grandma. She offered to let me borrow one that had belonged to Steph’s granddad.

Steph’s granddad cared deeply about his tools. He kept them organized and in mint-condition, right up until he passed away a few years ago. Those tools are now objects of reverence to just about everyone who knew him. “There’s two out in the shed with the riding mower. Go take a look at them, and if you think one of them will work, you can take it home with you.”

I’ve been hanging around during major holidays for almost 10 years now; I’ve met every great aunt, great uncle, and distant cousin spread across this state; I married one their own, but never have I felt more like a member of the family than when I heard those words.

So this weekend I finally used the lent-out heirloom and did our entire yard:

My thoughts:

1. Push-mowers, even this old cast-iron type, are elegantly-designed machines. There are absolutely no extraneous steps between the person operating them and the desired result.
2. Push-mowers are not for people with a yard much bigger than mine.
3. Push-mowers are not exactly quiet. When you push-mow, the spinning/clipping mechanism makes a formidable racket. It’s not as loud as a gas-mower, but probably not as muted as you’d think.
4. Push-mowers produce repeating explosions of grass clippings when they’re running. These are fun to watch. In fact, those flying clippings are the only thing that will sustain you when you’re halfway through the yard and wondering what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into.
5. Push-mowing might occasionally make you stop and wonder what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into. If you just keep at it, before you know it you’ll have it all done.
6. Push-mowing requires you to have a comeback on the ready for all the neighbors who want to tease you about doing it. “It’s cheaper than a gym membership!” is what I say. This one is mine. You may not use it.
7. Push-mowers offer a daunting amount of resistance when stopped or moving slowly. If you give that initial push your all, the weight and gearing seem to take over some of the propulsion. From there it’s sort of like pushing a hand truck loaded up with boxes — a hand truck loaded up with boxes that you want to get onto the moving truck without ever slowing down.
8. Push-mowing itself doesn’t take any longer than gas-mowing, but it will take you longer to push-mow because you have to rake the area you want to mow before hand. Even a small twig can get between the blades and bring the mower to an unwelcomed halt. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does you have to back the mower up, or, failing that, flip it over and pull the stick out. Then you have to give it that grunt-inducing “starting-push” again. Either way these sudden obstructions are total buzz-kills. The more you can prevent, the better.
9. Gas-mowing will occassionally still be necessary, even if you wish to convert completely to push-mowing. When we first moved into our house, for example, it was the middle of the summer and the grass probably hadn’t been touched in six weeks. I proudly gave the push-mower a firm jolt onto the lawn, it immediately locked up, and the momentum almost sent me over the handlebar. Push-mowers don’t work on tall grass. (Thus the “mow often” advice.) Another time to dust off or borrow that gas-mower would be when you really need to mow, but it’s really hot outside. If you wouldn’t play a lengthy, spirited game of soccer in the conditions outdoors, you won’t want to push-mow.
10. Push-mowers cut the grass pretty short. I’ve mowed the lawn a few times since we’ve been in the house, but always with a gas-mower I got off Kevslist¹ . To avoid having to do a lot of extra fertilizing, aerating, etc., you should keep your grass at about three inches in height. I decided to take the push-mower for a spin this weekend and cut the grass short ’cause I’m hoping it’s the last time I’ll have to mow until next spring.
11. Push-mowing or not, when did I become one of these old men that possess this kind of knowledge about lawncare? Yeesh.

I think I might be hooked on push-mowing. I’m now eyeing a newer model that claims to be lighter-weight and able to cut at the three-inch mark. I’m thankful for the introduction my current, sacred push-mower has given me though, and once I’m done using it, I’ll be sure to put it right back where it was.

-

¹ Which is actually Craigslist, but with the added convenience of your brother Kevin finding the item for you, purchasing it, and delivering it to you before you knew you even wanted it.

Tags: DIY, House - No Comments »