Tag: Squirrel Interdiction

Slow Garden Prep Work

Wolsey2 Comments

I missed gardening last year, but now that I know my wife is okay, I feel emotionally able to make an attempt at it this year.

My first year here in the house was really successful, but as we know, the squirrels really came in strong as garden raiders and soil destroyers. While kind of funny that they just ignored the chicken wire and crawled right through, it was aggravating.

Now that my hoop house is recovered in hardware cloth, with 1/2″ by 1/2″ squares, the squirrels have not been able to get in.

I, unfortunately discovered I have some pre-season work I have to do to finish all that up.

This is a picture of the invisible chicken wire the camera would not show, sandwiching weeds growing between that and the hardware cloth.

Between the layer of chicken wire and hardware cloth, weeds are growing. They are super hard to remove because of the chicken wire. I have to literally cut back the chicken wire and then pull the weeds. That’s hard for me to do. It requires bending over and my joints just don’t like it. I can do a section, maybe two at a time.

Add to that, that this is the Pacific Northwest, and it’s often pouring this time of year. That makes it super hard to get all this done. This week it’s been clear, but in the 20F temperature range, and I am just gonna have to wait until things clear up.

During my last work session, I pulled the good soil out of the other beds, and used it to top off the ones in my protected garden. I am going to concentrate on the beds that are protected in my hoop house first and work on the rest through out the year.

My protected covered hoop house, with two beds filled with soil to the top, and mulched with straw. One bed is still a work in progress.

I have decided to pull my other beds by the front and back of the house, and create kind of a gravel pad to put them on. I am just not into weeding, as it hurts a lot to do, so I would rather build it in that there is a reduced chance of weeds happening up front.

I’m going to create gravel beds along the back of the house, the front of the house, and in front of the deck. I’m making them good and wide, and putting my metal beds on top of that.

A side benefit is it will take more of the lawn out. I am not a fan of grass lawns, so that is a bonus.

My plan is to get some soil and gravel delivered, so I can work on this when the days come up that it’s decent enough to get something done. Then add in an irrigation system after the last freeze. I am putting a timer on this shit!

By fall I hope to have all the new bed areas set up and ready. That way next year I will have my wife’s requested flower beds, and less lawn to mow.

Garden Cage Done!

Wolsey1 Comment

Alright squirrels, try to get through this!

Hardware Cloth Installed!

This was actually really hard on me, unexpectedly. Reaching up and over is not a movement my bad collarbone does well, but little by little, I got it done.

Wife helping me!

My wife helped me, but she’s not much better off than I am. However, with the two of us, we got it done.

Close up of the half inch hardware cloth.

The hardware cloth was also a bit tricky. It will cut you easily, and I shredded my work gloves working with it. Each session of wrapping the garden cage left me with a lot of cuts and scratches.

Front gate.

I repaired the front door with a gate repair kit to it so it didn’t sag anymore. I left about a foot free on the top of the gate in hopes that pollinators would go in there. If the squirrels find it, it will be a simple matter of covering it too.

I also used a brick border where the hardware cloth came down to the ground. The bricks sit on top of a bit of hardware cloth that is tucked under them to keep the squirrels from digging under.

I used some wire to literally sew the panels on, and that worked really well. I have been keeping watch on the beds and not a single new hole has been dug since I did this.

I feel bad because most of the season is gone, but I figure that is one of the things that is cool with owning your own house. I will prep the beds, and fill them with more dirt, and be ready for next spring.

I might even have enough time to build a cage for a new external, strawberry bed by then.

The only things that survived from last year are the parsley and the strawberries. I was pleased I at least get the strawberries. Oh, and the mint and rhubarb outside the cage. They did remarkably well.

I feel really good about this because if this works, then it’s a one and done. I can then concentrate on planting my plants.

Although exhausting, it was nice to get this done. Here’s hoping I have stopped the squirrel incursion.

Non-Update Update

Wolsey2 Comments

Well, not much is getting done. I might miss this season for gardening. After surgery I had a lot of recovery time, then I had to work on getting my garden cage squirrel-proofed, and that is a lot to do.

I haven’t even tried to plant without these protections in place because the squirrels are literally digging up my beds constantly. It’s never ending.

My garden plan is to finish the hoop house, and see if I can put some late crops in. Then slowly turn to my other beds. I have a new strawberry bed I need to cage up, as well as a sunflower, flower bed and herb beds that needs caged.

I have about 3/4 of my hoop house covered but it’s slow going. I just take a long time to heal, and my recovery from general anesthetic along with my work obligations have been a lot.

I am wrapping 1/2″ hardware cloth over the entire thing. I am using bricks to weigh down the ends of it, so squirrels can’t get in. You can literally see the squirrel holes in this picture.

My wife has been helping me because her 6’2″ height and long arms are very helpful compared to my 5’6″ stature. I am hoping this weekend to get more done. I am out of bricks so maybe I will pick some up on Wednesday afternoon.

I do like that in the picture you can see all the clover coming in. I’ve had a lot of it grow in from last year. I’ve been mowing it just like grass. I love it. I am going to seed the bald spots again and see if that helps. Clover is so nice! I don’t know why folks do grass yards.

We also had our HVAC system changed out a few months back to a heat pump. This is the single best adult purchase in my entire life. Our house is from 1935 and has thin exterior walls, so being able to control the heat and cold in the house to be comfy is a god send.

We spent $26,000 to do have the work done, and some of it was electrical to prep for this. We will see about getting some of that back at tax time, but honestly? I’d rather pay the small low interest home loan we got for it, and be comfortable.

It’s been a few months and we’ve had a few hot days, and it’s amazing. This, combined with the roof vents, and crawl space insulation means that no matter what, our home is the perfect temperature. This is the first time in a year and a half that it’s not over hot or over cold.

I decided I didn’t want to mow around the heat pump unit, so I dug up the grass around it, and laid down landscaping cloth, and put some gravel over that.

This is so tiny, but literally took me two hours, and I was physically wrecked for days!

I wanted to make sure the mowers or weed eaters didn’t come in contact with the important bits below:

Ignore the landscaping cloth peeking through, I am getting another bag of gravel this weekend to cover it.

Now we don’t have to worry about accidentally breaking anything. Honestly, I’d do the whole side of the house that way, because I hate grass lawns.

The other project I have been doing, a window or two at the time, is reflective UV film. I have been putting it on all the windows. it’s just like a giant vinyl sticker you install on the inside of your windows, that keeps out the heat, and is reflective enough you can’t see in.

You can hardly see in at all, and it sure does keep the heat of the sun out.

We have some very busy neighbors and my wife and I didn’t want to have folks being able to see us in our home. We found a product on Amazon, and used the silver version. No affiliate link, this is just what I used.

I was just impressed with how much heat this window film keeps out. It is also damn near impossible to see. In the picture above you can kind of see the back window, but that’s at 2 feet from the window. On the street, you see literally nothing. It’s 10/10 on blocking heat, and 10/10 on blocking folks from seeing in.

I am just trying to get all this infrastructure projects done. I don’t feel it’s the fun projects, but the basic ones to make everything livable. I am more into the decorating and planting, not the insulating and making the house livable.

I think next spring I will have all the garden beds protected with cages. I will have all the big livable projects done, and can start planting and maybe doing cool artsy decorating projects. I look forward to that.

Mostly, I am trying to give myself the grace that I would extend to anyone else. I am partially disabled. I can’t lift, or move the way healthy young folks can, so I am doing a lot. It’s just on my terms. I like to remind myself of that when I feel I am missing my own self imposed deadlines.

It is amazing though, that I have a house, and I can work on projects at my own pace because I will live here next year, and next year and so on. I sometimes forget I get to live here forever because I am so used to renting.

More Garden Work

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-Originally published on Tumblr

Slowly but surely, I am working in the garden. It is definitely a bit frustrating taking so long on things because my body can’t keep up. I miss my 20s and 30s where my joint issues and pain were not as severe, and I could do all this in probably a solid weekend.

Anyway, I am proud of what I have going on.

I got both walls up, and all the long beds in. I ran out of chicken wire though. I won’t have that until Monday. Which is annoying!

My plan is to get the last two circle planters done, and the PVC door frame. I can chicken wire the damn thing when the wire comes in.

I have some dirt, but I don’t think it’s enough. I probably need like another $300ish dollars worth. I wish I had good dirt here, but nope. I don’t even have tree branches or wood to put in the bottom of the raised beds.

But wait. . . Whats’ the pile of dirt in the below picture?

I can’t use that lump of dirt in my beds. I pulled that out of my lawn, and it’s sod, dirt, rocks, glass, plastic, roofing shingles, oyster shells, playing cards, beer cans, and god knows what else. I don’t feel it’s safe to have it in with my vegetables.

Instead, since I don’t have a truck, I have been packing it into amazon boxes, and putting it in the garbage one box at a time.

This is besides feeding an entire disassembled TV console into the garbage, one or two boards at a time.

Who knew homeownership would also include patiently disposing of items you had no ability to get rid of any other way because you drive a KIA, and do not have a truck.

As always, work is dependent on my body’s ability to keep up.

I guess it’s good that spring just sort of started up this week, and was so late, because I had nothing done in time anyway. However, at least it will all be set up for next year, and all I’ll have to do is to amend the soil and plant.

Garden Progress & Operation Squirrel Interdiction is a go

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Well, I got the chicken wire up on Operation Squirrel Interdiction.

I am going to use PVC pipes on the front there, and make a door that is all chicken wired.

I am thinking of covering the ground with gravel, but I can’t seem to figure out how much gravel I need, and I had sticker shock when I looked at Lowes.

It occurred to me my cat can come out with me to the garden when it’s done because it will be inclosed. She may like that.

I also used some of the surplus dirt to fill holes in my front yard. Oliver the big black main coon stray cat that was re-homed and his incredibly feral littermate were using my entire front yard like a free roaming litter box. I had thought it was a dog because the leavings were so damn big. These cats are bigger than some dogs.

The result is my lawn looking like it is going through chemo because of the tufts of grass and big dug out holes.

So with the holes filled, we seeded the lawn with clover seed. We prefer clover to grass. We will see how that works out.

What I have learned is the lawn looks like it was landscaped with some sort of garbage rock fill dirt. There is literally garbage all over. Glass, roofing shingles, plastic, kids toys, and so damn many rocks. It’s bad. I am glad I am going with raised beds and expensive new dirt.

I mean, the city I live in is notorious for superfund sites anyways, and you have to get the soil checked if you want to grow in the ground. I don’t even want to try, and now with all the rocks and crap? Yeah, no. I’m not in a specifically known site, but I’m not taking chances.

I had to order more T fittings for the PVC and it won’t get here until Thursday. That and a couple bails of straw are the last items I need to start an actual garden.

It may be late in the seasons, but honestly the last frost date just happened so we are all late this season.