The good. The bad. The ugly.

The ugly would be the state of our yard right now. Scrap wood in piles, giant holes dug for the trees. Concrete found in our old beds (what the heck?!?!) now lying in the grass. Tree branches in heaps by the wall. It’s a mess. But my friend Rachel says it looks busy, like stuff is happening, so I’ll go with that.

The good would be the irrigation guy that came this morning. Cliff Wood is not only an organic gardener and irrigation installer, he also knows his trees and he’s cool enough to teach me what to do. Yup. He told me everything needed and how to put it together. He essentially saved me over a grand of labor costs.

And then there’s the bad. Oh, that nasty bad news that seems to infiltrate our every home project, that is uncovered with every turn of the corner. It’s never-ending and seemingly inevitable. If we have something to do, we now plan for the bumps. Where to start…

Our raised beds were made with scrap wood and 4×4 blocks to reinforce the corners. Those 4×4 blocks were treated with arsenic-something-or-other. Not. Good. So the beds will need to be redone. Also the railroad ties that were in the backyard and were relocated to the front yard in hopes of terracing the slope need to be removed for the same reason. Freecycle, here we come.

The other big issue is the number of valves we have for the front and back yard and the number we actually need. We’ll (I’ll) be adding at least 3 more valves to the front and back, which means moving my newly-built 3 bin composter and digging up the existing valves. They also need pressure-regulators and filters.

And then the trees. I knew from the tree inspection we had last month that the existing trees were touch and go. Ash trees grown in grass and with sprinklers create shallow roots. Switching over to Netafim puts the trees at risk. We’ve got a 50/50 chance of losing both trees in the next few years. Not only that but the rootball of these trees is twisted, something I learned is an epidemic of sorts in the U.S. and creates problems down the road. He also thinks we might have an issue with the sheet mulching we did, although I think he’s just unfamiliar with sheet mulching.

So there ya have it. I may be hand-watering for awhile while I retrofit a sprinkler sytem into a Netafim system.

After doing some thinking, I am going to look further into clay pot irrigation (olla pronounced OH-ya) for my raised beds. They essentially are clay pots, filled with water and planted under the soil. Dry soil pulls the water out and irrigates the plants. After i look into it further, I’ll post more details.

Oh. That To Do list I posted? I think I’ll be extending that another week. It looks like my weekend will be used up installing irrigation valves.