Finished hillside bed

This morning I went back to work on raising the wall and mixing the soil. There was rain in the forecast and I wanted to get done before it arrived.

I first spread a tarp on the ground above the bed and shoveled all the screened soil out of the bed. Then I laid a layer of landscaper’s cloth on the bottom of the bed and up the inside of the stone wall being sure there was enough on each end to wrap up the stone there as well. Once the cloth was in place, I shoveled enough soil back in to hold it in place. Next I added three bags of composted cow manure with humus and raked that out to mix with some of the soil. Then another layer of soil was added. Then half the 3 cubic feet of peat moss got shoveled on and raked in. Then came more soil, more peat moss, more soil and the last two bags of composted cow manure and finally the last of the soil. All the while, I was raising the stone wall a layer at a time and sending Terry to find some appropriate rocks for the back ledge of the bed. When all was done, I placed some of the left over hay from the lawn project on top to keep the clay from baking in the sun or washing away in a real heavy rain.





The best thing is that if I decide to build another bed up the slope. I should be able to use the top level of the back wall as the bottom edge of the wall. (It wouldn’t be part of the bottom row, I would put the new wall back into the slope so it just overlaps the edge of the stones already in place..)

Anyway, I do have lots of stone left which will be used on the next plant bed that will be built. This one will be done with a minimum of digging because the telephone/TV/computer line runs beneath the soil somewhere in the vicinity. It will go just to the right-foreground of this telephone pole. (A remnant of the previous owners wind mill project I believe.) I’ll have to do something to beat the weeds back. That won’t be easy as there’s a good sized multiflora rose sitting front and center and those things have got thorns to rival the blackberry canes.

The most amazing thing. It's growin' in green!

That grass I planted last week has begun to sprout with a vengeance beneath it's blanket of straw hay. The weather has been damp enough and the night time temperatures cool enough for the little grass seeds to emerge and start sending up shoots. As I pushed the power mower around the edges of the newly seeded patch, I could see the blades of grass poking their way up through the hat searching for sunlight so they could grow even more. Give it another week or two and it'll be ready to be mowed with the hay either raked gently away or mulched in place.



There's about 225 sq feet of lawn that's been reseeded. (I know, I know. More has to be reseeded as witnessed by the open patches outside the hay cover.)

Oh, my aching back!

I spent five hours today prepping the area where the big pile of dirt sat over winter; getting it ready for planting some grass seed. Having 15-20 cubic yards of soil dumped on it can really compress the ground and kill off the just emerging grass. I was going to use just a short-handled pitch fork and a rake but there were so many stones and the clay was compacted so hard that I needed my 16 pound big, black bar to break it up and lever the bigger stones out of the ground.

The area in question is about 15 feet by 15 feet and I wanted to loosen the top three or four inches. Unfortunately I found enough big flat stones just an inch or two below the surface to build yet another retaining wall as soon as I figure out where to put it. And there was one monster that was just about 3 inches down that I never did get under; so I reburied it right where it sat. Luckily its in a spot I will never want to put a tree or any other perennial plant.

Four hours into the project, I was ready to haul back two wheelbarrows of soil from my temporary storage pile on the other side of the yard and scatter that soil on top of the loosened earth. Over this I spread three bags of dehydrated cow manure and humus. I then raked to remove the smaller stones from the loosened stuff and mix the soils.

Finally, I gave the surface a light raking with a leaf rake and spread some Scotts starter fertilizer and grass seed. (I admit to using a little more of both than the 225 square feed called for--about enough for 500 sq. ft.) Then I watered the area for 15 minutes before spreading a layer of straw (about 2/3 of a bale) over the surface and watering a second time to wet the straw.

All this was done with one eye on the sky as there were thunderstorms forecast for right after noon. Of course, while the clouds darkened the sky from time to time, the rain never materialized. But they are promising them for tonight sometime between 8 PM (a half hour ago) and 1 AM. I will believe it when I hear the thunder boomers---no, make that hear the water in the gutter, we had thunder all yesterday and got about 20 drops of rain here at the Aerie, but all around us....

Anyway, with all the physical labor today, I'm about to pour me a nice cold beer and then early to bed.

More farming at the Aerie

The sun came out around noon and the breeze picked up about that tie, too. between the two, the grass dried out nicely by 5 PM so I knew it was time to get the mower out and do the first cut of the season before it got out of hand. Growing on clay fill with virtually no topsoil or organic material, I like to see the clover and other pasture grasses mixed in with the "real" grass. It's still pretty sparse in places where erosion on the slope has washed even the clay away and left stone exposed or where water has flooded the smallest depression and killed the roots, but it seems to be progressing.

I noticed that the wild daisy population is a little thinner this year but there are still clumps of plants beginning to pop up along the margins of the "lawn." If I can find any along the road or on our second driveway, I'll consider moving them to areas where they can contribute to the landscape. The same goes for any daylilies or tigerlilies I might come across. I might even raid the beds up at the Bolt Hole for some. They transplant pretty easily. Come to think of it there are rugosa roses up there and black-eyed susans as well as daisies and raspberries. Might have to go plant hunting up there as soon as they grow enough to recognize.

Of course, all that will also have to wait until the blackflies dwindle in numbers. Only the breeze blowing this evening kept them manageable. There was more risk of inhaling one than being bitten. But I just know that the blackflies up in the Adirondacks are out for blood. They have certainly gotten enough of mine in the past. So I will bide my time. I will have to cut the grass up there in a week or so, but that's what the mesh bug suits are made for.