with the Mantis. That’s what I’m good for before I flag. We have a sidewalk snaking down mid-lawn from the front porch. I have about 15 wide on the side I’m on, and I’m using the Mantis to get through the peatlike root mat left from the sod-stripping. It’s slow work, and strenuous: rototillers even of mini size are that. But Jane got the bricks out of the flower bed, and it is now contiguous with the lawn, which is becoming tilled earth. I turn up the roots to kill the re-start of the grass (no, our bargain-basement yard guys didn’t do it right). and just keep going as far as I can. Jane’s been planting things, digging up sprinkler heads that are going to be shut down. (No more lawn watering) and replacing the ones that will be used for new plantings. We get this done—and then we weedcloth it. I’d like to get the iris transplanted this year, but looking at the whole job (I have a 40′ yard to do the other side of the fence) I’m thinking—weedcloth and mulch this year, and the first course of that retaining wall our neighbor wants on his margin. We’ll lay the first course for him. He gets to do the rest.
Then we have to dig a trench and flatten the front slope a foot, then install a front retaining wall to match the look on the right side of the sidewalk/steps. That’s not hard, with those predone non-mortered wall segments. But digging is going to be. We weedcloth it, then lay down lava rock to match the right side, and steal a course of rock from our big wall, which is a shade tall, to build the retaining wall on the short side. And distribute pine bark mulch everywhere on this side until we get the time to complete the landscaping over there.
The big job is going to be the right side of the lawn, where we have a birch and a spruce beside a dip that will be excavated as a dry pond with rock, and a dry streambed. We’re going to do some plantings. But all that has to be rototilled. I should have muscles like Hercules by September. Jane will spell me at it when she gets some time from her other jobs, but I’m using it just to give me a break from writing, when I need to clear the circuits. Fortunately the Mantis is easy to start, so I just carry it out front (one-hand job) and start it up, do five more feet, and fold. Slow and steady wins the race.
One of these days, OSG, we’re going to have that mulch-shoveling party. Or a mass weedcloth fiesta, involving lots of lawn pins and rolls of weedcloth. Or maybe a wall-laying party. Drinks will be served. 😉
I’m sure we have now passed [in our neighbors’ observation] from, “What are those crazy women doing to that lawn?” to “OMG, they’ve got a mess,” to “Are they planting a new lawn?”
Nope. Just weedcloth and mulch. Prettiness comes later. But our new Contorted Birch is leafing.
I’m on the way!
(Not really. At home doing housework here. Will come another day.)
I did a walkway all by myself with that philosophy. Do what you can. Occasionally get VERY TALL ANDREY to bring in some more pavers and just keep going. Don’t get too bored or too worn out that way.
You’ve started a much bigger job, and I’m glad I don’t live close enough to get roped in! Good luck! I have told the husband about your Mantis experience. We shall see if he decides to go for it. Thanks for the review!
Wait. Wait. I just thanked an author for a review.
That’s not hard, with those predone non-mortered wall segments. But digging is going to be.
Make sure the first course, the most important is absolutely level in all axes and drainage is provided. And make sure the blocks are glued down with block adhesive. It comes in a tube like caulk.
Good luck. Building walls is hard work.
Phil Brown
is it too late to apply lasagna gardening techniques?
I was marvelling at your energy and the memory popped up. Never tried it myself but it sure looks as though it would save a lot of work.
Ran a search and found dozens of sites that discuss it.
http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf582744.tip.html
is the first one I looked at and it seems a good intro.
While the Mantis is a handy gadget for small areas there is
a much better Rototiller for the less ambitious.
Troy makes an 8 1/2 horsepower rear tine tiller that requires
absolutely minimal effort to operate. I used a big front tine
tiller to do a job, once, it required more effort to wrestle
than using a shovel to do the same thing.
This is far too expensive for homeowners, unless you have a really big yard, but if you ever need to rent a tiller, find
one of these. It is too bad the incompetent failed on your
lawn removal even if you think you need more exercises.
Alas, most tillers won’t fit into our Subaru Forester, and unfortunately at 50.00 a swat rental, my stamina won’t get 50.00 worth out of it before I collapse in the dirt.
I’m kind of between a rock and a hard place on that. The beast that would make short work of this job is still untransportable and pricey to rent, at the rate I could use it. Sigh. 20 feet, I could maybe do, but it would cost me 50. And I’d be stove in.
Age is a such a pain in the rear.
I have come to the conclusion that putting down a 3 foot hard surface next to the house wall is well worth it. Plantings in front conceal it, you have an appropriate surface for ladders when doing exterior work on the house, and it keeps vegetation/lack of air circulation from deteriorating the house walls.
That’s a good point. We’re trying to do something that will be like the back yard, nice to walk about and potter in, but no longer requiring massive maintenance.
My garden work today was watering, removing some of the weeds from the pots, and admiring the very very small mantis on one of the lilies (about half an inch of body, and maybe a quarter inch of neck and head). The Muscat is in full bloom, the Zinfandel and the Cabernet are coming along, and the boysenberry is blooming.
The yard full of sweet-peas-gone-wild is very fragrant, too. (Don’t ever plant them unless you intend to plow them under when they start taking over.)
We have sweetpeas to plant but are thinking of putting them up the arbor where the wisteria seems not to have survived the mild winter. We will view them cautiously. 😉
Off topic question: if the universe is a novel, what does that say about the author?
One wonders if there’s a sequel.
After a rainy three days we are prepping the pond hole for the liner to go in tomorrow. Finally found a good local water garden guy who seems to know what he is doing. Also hope to plant some new oriental lilies and transplant hosta.
I have very little luck with sweetpeas….which puzzles me as I grow peas like crazy….wisteria has to become very well established and then it seems to be indestructible…..we have several hundred year old vines in this area…..the problem is that with age they become invasive…
growing into walls, pushing windows from frames…..I am planning to put one in and grow it as a tree. Almost time to plant morning glories….heavenly blues. 😀
Be sure when you trim your liner that you’ve allowed enough not to let water splash from a falls to get behind it. The splash can be very tricky, and go far!
Yep, wisteria is an amazing plant. We’re training ours (if it lives) up two thick bamboo poles to make opposing spiral trunks, to support themselves across the roof of our little roofed garden seat: as it gets up to the roof, we’re going to put more bamboo across that fragile aluminum structure and sever any vine that isn’t wrapped around the bamboo: wisteria can reach out and pull, I swear, and it has to be carefully trained so that it bears its own weight or it can be immensely destructive. I once had a patio roof made of 8x8s and 2x4s with two massive wisteria, and it ripped up 2x4s as if they were toothpicks.
SmartCat, From your posts (and weather descriptions), you too are in the general vicinity of Boston. We have evil, nasty lily beetles around here which do a number on oriental lilies. They haven’t quite spread to every place yet but they are well on their way. They eat away at the leaves and excrete black ick (I’m not certain of the bad language check in Word Press programs, but yes it is beetle sh_t and it really looks like it).
Also, sweet peas are not actual pea plants (and are poisonous to boot) which may be why you have trouble growing them. I tried them one year in the same planters I do peas and they didn’t grow much. Which reminds me that I should get outside and (belatedly) plant my sugar snap peas. today is Patriot’s Day in Massachusetts and I happily have the day off to avoid the Boston Marathon and contemplate the shot heard round the world.
Raesean…yes I am south of you in southern RI…..I have had lily beetles and they are indeed nasty. I think my most recent loss is due to our WET march as the lilies in planters look better than ever.
You have probably explained my bad luck with sweet peas.
Happy Patriot’s Day. Do they still do Paul Revere’s Ride? I lived in Concord a long time ago.
Yep, the Boston Globe today did a short article about the re-enactment of Paul Revere’s ride. I only skimmed it but certainly was confused by the picture of our Revere-wannabe atop his horse in broad daylight with an admiring schoolchild gazing up at him. Daylight?? How does that fit into our lanterns and “one if by land, two if by sea”? On the other hand, they also still re-enact the battle on Lexington Green, which was supposed to be at dawn but is re-enacted around 9:00 or so in the morning instead (if memory serves me. We attended along with hundreds of others and hundreds of re-enactors some years ago and it certainly wasn’t at dawn).
I did get my sugar snap peas in yesterday and then today we succumbed and went to a great garden center near here, Mahoney’s, and picked up lots of fun native plants and perennials to try to squirrel away into our smallish and rather over-packed garden! Spring has sprung! I get to muck in my garden (given the amount of rain we have had, muck is indeed the word in parts of my yard.)
Ahhhh….how times change. As I recall in 1967 ‘Paul Revere’ did his ride a night….past out house….I was a little nonplussed to hear a guy on horseback calling “The British are coming.”….we also got up at the crack of dawn to watch The Shot Heard Round The World.
We are in the process of cutting down sassafras trees (of which I have nothing good to say) before continuing with the pond. I bought an electric chain saw, as the gas saws have become to heavy for me to handle for any length of time. I am trying to be sensible this year and not buy stuff until I have the ground and/or planters ready. HA!! 😆 😉
I’m in slightly warmer climate, my garden has been in for a couple of weeks. The friend I usually borrow a tiller from had his in the shop, so I had to think of alternatives.
First, I went with the old standby a hoe. Even after sharpening it just wouldn’t chop clay and turn soil like I wanted. And after handle number two I was done.
Plan B, being an archaeologist with stone sources nearby, I knapped a hoe out of millcreek chert. Better, but the resharpening was a pain and forget it if you hit another stone.
Plan C, went in the shed and sharpened up my wildland firefighter’s Pulaski(A combination axe & maul for clearing brush). Eureka! finally found the right tool for the job. The maul turned the soil and chopped it up, and I was able to dig furrows with the axe part. Though being 7’1″, using a 3′ tool has its disadvantages.
Though my plot is only 15’x35′. You really feel like you have accomplished something when you do it by hand. And it gives you a greater appreciation for those that don’t have a choice in the matter.
Our repertoire, thank goodness, has only included the traditional rake, pickaxe/mattock, and the whizzy-thing—thus far.
Jane has attacked it this morning and done in one morning three times what I have been able to do in 3 days. Sigh. I am hanging my head. It’s looking a lot more do-able out there, but Jane is fried.
Sounds like an opportunity for a trade. You need a strong back and and experience to help with chores. While I need an agile mind and guiding hand to help me with my writing.
So I propose the first annual C.J. Cherryh writer’s concentration camp. In essence, me camping out in your back your back yard while doing home improvement. And then, writing in the evenings.
Just a thought…http://xenophon.page.tl/
😆
With all our talk of gardening…….HAPPY EARTH DAY!! 🙂 😀 😆
Sounds like an opportunity for a trade. You need a strong back and and experience to help with chores. While I need an agile mind and guiding hand to help me with my writing.
So I propose the first annual C.J. Cherryh writer’s concentration camp. In essence, me camping out in your back your back yard while doing home improvement. And then, writing in the evenings.
Please, why restrict the labor to the back yard? I’m a great carpenter and I’ve written myself into a hole on my mystery novel. Oh wait, maybe it does require heavy work.
Phil Brown
😆 hmm. We need a leanto greenhouse…
But I’m not sure my sage advice, which is about the quality I have to give here, is worth it. 😉
You guys just go up to Writing for Fun and Profit up on the top row and pose me questions. I’ll give you the best answers I know.
I may have grown up on a farm, but I don’t think I’ve used a roto-tiller since I was 13. Have they changed much since 1960 (and God, what do the COST these days)? Sounds like you’re doing heavy duty stuff, retaining walls, pavers etc can be a little frightening. I would fear collapse without mucho advice, but you sound like you know what you are doing. Oddly enough, living in a Manhattan apartment (and as my wife said, “But you’re allergic to everything green!”) I was the gardening writer for The Record (large suburban NJ newspaper) for a season.
Sad to say, you’re about five years older than I am, but especially with my bad leg, I could never physically do some of the stuff you’re planning. I’m jealous in an odd sort of way. But living in an apartment, I’m especially jealous of having a yard to landscape.
I really like the idea of a greenhouse, too.
Would it make sense to call in a landscaper or at least someone with a backhoe, grader?, etc. for the heavy stuff? I suspect the $$$ may be an issue, and perhaps space for machinery also, as might fear that they may inadvertently damage roots, etc. don’t know if you have contacts with someone in the building trades there. Might call the county extension agent for contacts; cities have them too, or used to.
Sorry to foist unasked for advice on you.
God “righter”! I cannot proof my own stuff, especially on a computer, even though I’ve worked as a proofreader!
😆 fixed that for you. I do stuff like that all the time!
I used a mantis a few years back. Those little guys are a lot of fun and it’s kind of neat how light they are and how well they dig. However, the little thing really beat the heck out of me compared to a bigger tiller.
It’s a curious balance between the power of a big tiller to hug the ground and keep going (dragging the user with it) and the little Mantis, which I can lift easily in one hand, and which has to be dragged by the user before it begins to hop frantically as high as a foot in the air if you don’t either pull it backward (burying its tines usefully in the dirt) or ease off that trigger. Yet it’s so precise and small you can dig around rosebushes, or down garden rows, and use it to edge next to a concrete sidewalk.
What amazes me is how efficiently it deals with rocks. There is only one size rock that will jam it: one that precisely fits between two tines. Larger and smaller rocks get spat out, up to large potato sized. Since we have few small rocks, this works for us.