Fall Clean-up and New Compost!

Another previously written post from last year...

My in-laws were in the week before Thanksgiving so the guys could build our shed (finally! a real place to store gardening and other important outdoor necessities that doesn't look like hobos under a bridge! [it's all been stacked under our 2nd story deck for years])

My Mom-in-law brought her grubby clothes ready to go!
We are truly kindred spirits because while I love any task that gets me out in the gardens, I figure clean up, weeding, boring stuff isn't what most people would sign up for! (Maaaaybe planting pretty flowers and seeing it come together.)

But she was so excited! Hahaha! She said fall clean-up is one of her favorite things because she loves the end result!

So not only did she do - well, all of it - but it looked 10 times better than any previous year! (And 100 times better than last year as I didn't even get to clean-up because of renovations in full swing!)

Might be a bit more dramatic if I'd actually taken before photos :-/

But just picture dead stalks and piles of browning greenery (the first hard frost takes "aww, it's the end of the season, but still some fading green" into hideousness real fast!) and overgrown weeds I'd ignored all over. 

 So neat and clean!

Still looks like a lot because I leave the leaves on over the winter, but trust me - there was messiness everywhere!
AND! She painstakingly pulled out - by hand - all of the grass that had seeped in and I hadn't had time to remove yet!
And yes, that IS the camellia in bloom!

When all was said and done, the yard waste bin (pictured right) was full, compressed, piled high and overflowing.


I started piling the waste in the garden to dispose of over the next few weeks. It was SO much!

The pile next to the stairs on the right: that's about a third of what she
clipped and pulled out of my beds!

You can also see my peas in the background - like I said before: I got them in the ground a couple weeks too late and sure enough - the blossoms started, but the hard freeze took them out so no fall crop of peas 😔








Super random is that while everything else is browning and wilting and facing a sad demise, these adorable little purple guys draping over the pot edges are just as vibrant and lively as ever!




So yeah, goes without saying that the yard looks fabulous! And I am sitting real nice for spring! And therefore any success of next year is credited to my very hard-working Mom-in-law!


Meanwhile, when not painting the shed panels, I was working on a much needed project:

Operation Compost Relocation

I'm sure I've mentioned before how I put the compost in the far corner of the yard since that seemed to be the only (and most logical) place.

Neighborhood cats chillin' above the compost bin

What I did not think of, however, is the giant tree next to it and so over the last few years it has become an increasingly awful problem where I dig down to what is supposed to be my really good compost and instead find absolute nests of baby tree roots! 😱

Tree be like: "oooohhhh, look at all this beautiful soil you've provided for my nourishment!!" 😑

So after a year of pondering, I decided to move it to the only other place sort of out of the way and without huge trees! Next to the house.....and really hope that's not a mistake!

First I had to pull out everything from the bin and pile it on a tarp. I tried somewhat separating it by fresh waste (the molding jack-o-lantern being the largest 😆), by leafy in-progress material, and by the decent compost I tried recovering from the roots. That way I could put it back together in a logical fashion.

The start of the emptying the bin

By the time I got down to digging out the roots - just so I could pull out the stakes and plastic walls (the roots had grown through all the holes below the surface!), I was SO sore and cranky and had definitely heard a pop in my back!
(Definitely way overdid it and had no clue that I was actually a few weeks pregnant...whooops!)

The other wonderful thing my Mom-in-law did was dig trenches for where my new compost surround was going to go! She made the most perfectly sized trenches with straight walls and everything! It was incredible! (In typical fashion: I took no pictures)

So come the weekend, all I had to do was put it all back together!
Yeaaaah, that took hours and I still didn't even get the plastic walls up nor all the stuff put back in!

Thankfully the following week we had a beautiful day where I was able to finish.

Ta da!!!

And because it's now visible from the front of the house, I had to hide it with something very nice, classy looking, right?! 😆




I love pallets!! In the spring I'll put plants in the top and it'll look just dandy!

Plus we'll eventually have a fence blocking most of it anyway.

I am very pleased, so we'll see how it fares there and really hope gnats, mosquitoes or smell aren't a problem if we ever sit out under our deck. 😳
Think it'll be fine - so long as I keep it turned, the smell is never an issue and gnats stay localized to it where they get yummy sustenance! Mosquitoes will never stop hunting regardless, so there we have it!

All wrapped up and set for spring!