The list of projects around the yard for this year was a bit long but I’ve slowly been chipping away at it…

Project #1: Dirt moving and a new paver walk-off
I started with moving a large mound of our garden bed adjacent to the back patio. It had been home to some kind of ivy -like growth for a few years that we really didn’t like, so I dug all that up and removed another shrub that just about was on its last leg. I spread most of the soil around the base of the Nishiki Willow tree to expand the bed there. I replaced the small layout of pavers that we originally had with a larger area about 4′ x 8′ in size. It’s now a lot easier to walk on and off the patio without getting slapped in the face by the branches of the tree, and it gave a nice home to our grill.

Project #2: Rock wall border around the front garden bed
Over the Easter weekend I collected up some of the Pennsylvania Bluestone that is abundant around the property my in-laws have up in Tioga, PA.  We already have a nice rock wall border around the garden beds that butt-up against the house. Here’s the area that didn’t:

The collection of stone that we hauled down from the mountain:

And the completed rock wall border:

Project #3: Paint the rain barrels
Last year I added a set of rain barrels to the back yard that stuck out like a sore thumb. I decided to paint them brown, to match the shed… and now they look like two big pieces of turd – at least that’s what the wife thinks. :-) I also built a better platform for them to rest on with some of the extra cedar I had in the garage.

Project #4: Join the two garden boxes
I had originally built two separate square foot garden boxes a few years ago. But this season I decided to combine them to form one large box. After dismantling the two facing sides and rejoining them, I have 44 square feet now available (which still may not be enough).

In this picture you can see the strawberries in the foreground are already off to a good start, and towards the back are my garlic shoots that I need to split.

Project #5: Re-mulch the garden beds
Every other year I replenish the beds with new mulch. This year it took two truckloads… and I still ended up running out.

Projects still on the to-do list:

• build a permanent fire pit
• build a series of smaller, portable garden boxes
• paint the trim on the shed
• fix the front door screen (the dog put a hole in it the other day)

With all the watering I do around our yard during the spring and summer months, I thought I’d take a greener approach and use a rain barrel. I’m hoping it will help augment the quantity of water we use during these seasons. With all the reading I’ve done on it, I understand that it’ll also benefit our plant life (they like the natural rain water a lot more than the chlorinated tap water).

You can go out and buy them nowadays but what fun is that when you can build one yourself! Spending a few hours this afternoon yielded pretty decent results. Here’s what I did…

First, get yourself a food grade 50 – 60 gal drum, barrel, or equivalent container. The markings on this thing show that it once heald apple cider concentrate. I got it from my pops who used it a number of years ago to make wine, but just had it sitting in his garage. Score another green one for me for keeping it out of the landfill it would’ve eventually been tossed into.

I’m using a 4″ atrium grate as a way to keep large debris from getting into the barrel. Trace an outline of the open end onto the barrel and cut it out with a jigsaw.

Later on, I’ll add some stocking material around the grate to keep the smaller particles of dirt from getting down in there as well keep the mosquitoes away.

You then need to cut an overflow hole near the top of the barrel (in my case it’s the bottom of the barrel because I’m using it upside down… I’ll explain in a bit…). When rain collects in the barrel and fills up, which supposedly won’t take much when collected from the roof, the excess water has to go somewhere – enter the overflow drain.

The hole I cut was a about an inch and 3/8 to accommodate another fitting. Here I’m using a hose barb that will eventually connect to section of drainage hose (these types of hoses and fittings are usually found in sump pump applications). I threaded the fitting into the hole and used some teflon thread sealer to help. With the plumbing work I’ve done in the past I’ve found that the sealant is a bit more reliable than the teflon tape. It’s a bit messier going on, but does the job.

The next thing to do is flip over the barrel and attach your valve connection. I got lucky here because the top of the barrel (which will be the bottom when it’s done) had two bungs already in it, with one of them being the exact size I needed for the brass fitting I wanted to use.

Again using plenty of thread sealer, I got the initial fitting and 90 degree elbow in place.

From there it’s just a matter of connecting up the rest of your pieces. This happened to be my arrangement, based on the handful of parts I could find at the store and how far out from the barrel I wanted the valve to be. The valve hose bibb will accept a standard 3/4″ female hose connection if I choose to eventually hook one up. It’s a bit disorienting, but in this shot the valve is upside down.

At this point you’re ready to set the barrel in the position it’s going to be. We have a perfect spot at one back corner of our house, right next to the garden. You’ll want to set the barrel up on blocks so that you have enough height to either connect your hose or stick a watering can under there. I also used a hanger strap to secure the barrel to the house. At 60 gallons this thing will weigh upwards of 500 lbs when its full. You don’t want that tipping over.

I didn’t take too many more step-by-step pictures after this so the best I can do is number a few things in the following photo for reference. 1) I cut a 2.5 foot section of the downspout off. I have to get a cover for the bottom section that’s left there, but the reason I’m keeping it in place is so that come winter I can take the flexible downspout extension that’s connected to the top portion of the downspout (2) and re-route the water back down its original path (1). The flexible extension wraps around the corner of the house and connects to a PVC downspout adapter (3) which fits nicely into the atrium grate. Finally, I connected a section of drainage hose to the hose barb (4) sticking out the top side of the barrel and used a clamp to secure it.

Keeping the drain hose tight against the lower section of the downspout with zip ties, it leads down to an already existing discharge pipe I have hooked up for our sump pump. I cut into this pipe and added a wye fitting so the overflow has someplace to go.

I finished the project late in the evening so I didn’t get a chance to test it out. We’re supposed to get rain early tomorrow morning so I’ll find out soon enough if all my fittings are tight and sealed up enough.

The completed rain barrel… it’s not pretty to look at, but some fresh paint will take care of that.

Here are a few of the references I used for the design and construction of this thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGFDlkJOdaM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4zoPm2Eu2Q&feature=related
http://www.cityofbremerton.com/content/sw_makeyourownrainbarrel.html

…the Japanese Beetles. Every year they plague our yard and devour the Nishiki Willow tree we have in our backyard and the weeping Cherry in the front. This evening while sitting outside I started to notice them already. And they’ve already discovered our new trees! I went ahead and sprayed some of the Ortho stuff that I use every year (that I’m not sure why I use anyway because it doesn’t seem to work) around the grass and those two trees in particular. I found some info tonight that suggested using soapy water to deter them and to try to kill off as many of the first ones you see, as they’re the scouts that end up attracting more to your yard. I also put out a single trap along the one edge of our backyard and will probably put one out front too once I find the bait that I bought a few weeks ago.

Over the past two weekends I’ve planted three new trees around our yard: a red maple, a plum, and a kwanza cherry. All three were about 11 – 12 feet in height. You don’t realize how heavy those root balls can be until you’ve had to deal with one. To move the two into our backyard ot took me and my neighbor’s son, literally running the wheel barrel up the backyard to get enough momentum to get them up on our hill. My father helped me with the cherry – that one wasn’t too bad because it had a short trip from the back of my truck to our front yard. We replaced a dying blue spruce that we had transplanted to this particular spot three years ago when we moved here. After cutting it down we had to use a 2×4 to give us enough leverage to pry it out of the ground. Even then it was a bear to roll out of the hole and onto the grass.