Sunday, April 26, 2009

A busy week, followed by another...

Since I'll be too busy for housework this week, I figured I'd try to cram as much in over the last week as I could, weather permitting. Rains and events yesterday and today kind of limited my abilities, but I do feel well-positioned to get the vegetable raised beds completed in the next couple weeks -- maybe even next weekend. That is, assuming I can get all the topsoil, peat moss and manure that I need.

Since last weekend's bonanza of work, I haven't raised any more beds in the back. But, I did assemble the former fence pickets into walls and then went to buy a few more cedar boards for the other walls of the three remaining beds (didn't have enough fence pickets or retaining wall blocks to complete the job). I cut those and assembled them too. It also gave me an excuse to buy myself a circular saw, which, believe it or not, I did not have to this point. I got a Ryobi 12-amp, which cost me only about $40. So it was worth it.

Today I finished assembling the walls for the three remaining beds, so they'll be ready to rock and roll when I get time to take them into the garden.

Yesterday, before the rains came, I went to Home Depot to get gutters for the garden side of the garage. The water was running off and creating a trench in the raised bed. Also, I think that diverting that water out to the alley or wherever will help to minimize the flooding in the yard, somewhat.

I was only able to get one 10-foot length of gutter up, however, before we had a social obligation, so today, the back area was flooded because of the rains. Of course, the raised bed is not affected, which is good (and was the goal). So, once that water goes down, I'll be able to work back there again.

So that's where I stand right now...I'll hopefully have pictures once there's something good to take pictures of. We'll see how much more we get done next weekend!

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