Raking sticks and large pieces out of bark mulch in the flower garden

This is something I learned in Sidney when I turned two large back yards into a Back to Eden garden. When you get free wood chips there can be a lot of sticks and debris to remove. (I have learned that even if you buy it, that can still be the case). I just do a gentle raking over the surface, in kind of a herringbone type pattern with a soft leaf rake. (Either water it well first, or wait for a heavy rain. It is so much easier). It allows you to both level the mulch and make piles of sticks and large ‘chips’. Look at the difference it makes. 

BEFORE

Jumble of sticks and huge chips… close-up

Very messy garden

DURING

Piles to be disposed of

One side done, one to go 

AFTER

I do this raking every week or so for about a month and after that I just pick up sticks that pop up to the surface. So easy.

The chandelier is finally finished it’s makeover

Really happy with how it turned out. I wouldn’t change a thing. 
Remember this?

Slow going but I got ‘er done!

It was a heck of a job but it is all done and a temporary herb garden installed. 

This full of potential 11x3’ alcove just under the dining room window was a bit of a nightmare. It had been raised with brick and boards, half filled with dirt and like every other garden here, filled with a minimum of 6” to about 10” of irregular sized rock. Mostly in the 2-3” size but wildly varying. So many of them are buried in the dirt after years and years and impossible to get out with out picking them out of the packed soil one by one with your fingers. It really has been a crazy amount of work for just a few smallish gardens. I removed two Sidney back yards replacing lawn with huge vegetable and flower gardens in clay no less, and that was a lot easier than the little bit I’ve done here so far. But here we are. Getting it done. 

DONE

DURING

BEFORE

These stones are all now holding up fence posts securing 

the wire deer fencing in place. 

Just planting a few things…

Until the deer fencing goes up, I am very limited in what I can plant. But there are a few things. Deer don’t seem to touch daffodils or snowdrops. And the hostas are dormant so no worries. That means I can plant the shade loving plants in the garden by the north wall. 

Garden cleaned of all the stone mulch (what a job) and planted with hostas (pink flags showing me where they are because they have not begin growing yet), snowdrops and narcissus brought in from my old garden. Then I top dressed with mulch and chips from the fir trees we had removed. They will be used 100%. Mulch and chips, lots of beams for building and some firewood for the pieces that can’t be used. This makes me feel very good. 

Chandelier makeover

My chandelier makeover has been a long project. It was so dirty and crooked that I really wasn’t sure I wanted to keep it. But, I love chandeliers and thought it had potential. So as you know, I took everything off and cleaned it up. The next step was deciding to change the bulbs to LED to I could save 95% on my hydro bill for it. It was running at 400 watts of consumption and with the change it is now using 20 watts. HUGE DIFFERENCE. And to be honest, the 25 watt LED’s are as bright as the 40 watt incandescent bulbs. But then I discovered that the LED bulbs had stamped paint on three sides of the bulbs and a huge silver band that was too side to hide under the plastic ‘candle covers’. I used a scraper and windex to take off the paint, taped the bulbs up and spray painted the silver bands white. It really was an insane amount of fussy work just to make this thing “cute”, but it was so worth it, don’t you think?

Before

 LED bulbs with painted writing on bulb and huge silver band. 

Paint about to be scraped off using this blade

Bulbs after paint removal

Silver bands painted white and bulbs installed