Status 2

A nice fellow at work welded the spade belonging to Mary's Dad, Ivar, that I split trying to dig a trench. It's not pretty now but should be functional. I also bought a replacement spade for him since giving back broken tools is never polite.

South Bed

I've created a 4'x4' raised bed in the South Bed and planted the veggies I bought a month ago as well as some ornamental bulbs. This is more of a test bed but will eventually house the Limequat, lemon, and pomegranate trees.

Backyard

I had one fence company come and give me an estimate for the back fence. It was ~1250 for treated pickets or ~1500 for ceder. He said the treated wood no longer contains arsenic (so what's in it now?) but I'm still a little concerned. The existing fence is treated wood so maybe it would look better if it matched (to meet my wife's requirement of uniformity). I don't plan to have any edible plants growing right next to the fence so it might not matter much but the fruit trees will be close and might brush against it if I'm not careful.

North Square

I've cut down the oleander, but instead of digging it out I'm considering letting it grow back instead. Once the foliage around it is cleared they might actually look nice and grow well there. and it's really not the best spot for edibles since it's near sewer manhole.

I've also pruned back the hedges on the north side as they were too big to manage easily and would dwarf anything else I put in the backyard. They were close to 9' tall and now they are 4' tall.

South Square

I've started cutting down the other hedges against the back (east) fence. There is a lot of stuff to cut down and chopping it up into compostable size is quite time consuming.

I've assembled 7 wooden pallets I got gratis into a 2 section 4'x8' compost bin and started filling it. I bought black plastic and my wife picked out some fabric to wrap around it to pretty it up.