Garden on Corliss Homestead Journal

Where did the weekend go?

Plenty was accomplished, but it felt like a whirlwind that finished as I sat down for work this morning.

A 'big' job that got accomplished was clearing out the deep bedding from the chicken coop. With a rake and barrow, it took around four trips to rid the structure of built up material. While it is a dusty nasty job, it is a job that has to be infrequently done. I spread the spent litter as mulch over a patch of pollinator garden where I'm working to restore fertility to. The April showers will do a good job in smoothing and leveling the material while spreading the fertility through the soil. The vast majority of the spent litter is already a crumbly compost consistency with some flake still persisting. I'm not worried about nitrogen burn where I placed the material so we will see how the space fares as we progress.

On the flip side, there is new flake/sawdust in the coop and the coop was inspected for grossness. The good news is that nothing wrong was found! I've been hyper-vigilant about mites and so far have not had any issues in that space.

So far, the hens seemed pleased with the renewal rewarding me with eight eggs out of fifteen hens after a long winter with barely an egg a day.

With the accomplishment of cleaning out the chicken coop, the next stage is tackling the run.

I have been adding organic material throughout the year over several years. Wood chips, sawdust, wood shavings, twigs and much more have been added to help mitigate issues with spilt feed and manure. It is now to the point that there is a visible hump in the middle of the run that lowers as it gets towards the sides of the run. You cannot see the bottom supports of the run that were installed horizontally across the native soil as there is an overflow of material on top of them. The smallest of the material actually is spilling out from the hardware cloth walls!

The game plan is to shovel out the run, scrape it down to the original soil, and restart laying new carbon rich materials to build up over time. I've started the other day, removing about a quarter of the run, and have a large pile of beautiful material forming. There are still bits of straw and woodchip here and there but I don't mind it much. It will break down over time.

The plan, at the moment, is to use this compost-like materials to prep some new garden beds for next year. I figure letting it sit for a year will have it pretty well mellowed out for the next gardening season. I'll amend it with soil but this material looks really promising.

Glad spring has arrived now for you Tim, and good on you for fixing your own appliances now!  It will allow you and your wife less financial strain, particularly when it comes to large appliances.
We already had daffadils around here, my plum tree also already blossomed, hoping for a few plums this year, the tree blossomed for the first time last year, planted from pit, its on year 5 so maybe plums! I've rented mason bees for spring and leaf cutter bees for summer which will increase pollination in everything for myself as well as my neighbours.

Grumble grumble grumble....

I did not in fact fix the washing machine with my previous repair, but it did lead me to what ACTUALLY needs to be done so there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Instead of worn dogs being the reason that the agitator would not spin properly, it was in fact the agitator itself was stripped. Luckily, the metal driveshaft is in good condition and the plastic of the agitator was what was worn. After purchasing a new agitator assembly and sliding it on the driveshaft, it became obvious that the old agitator was worn out. The dogs repair was only about ten dollars, the new agitator assembly was around a hundred. Still cheaper to try two repairs than purchase a whole new washer.

I had to laugh, when I dissembled the old agitator to get to the central bolt, I found that I had accidently left the socket on the bolt after I reassembled everything. It sure made it convenient that I didn't have to dig through all of my sockets to find the right one.

Lets see if this repair sticks (which it should!) and how much longer the washer lasts.

I'm happier than a pig in... mud.



The first woodchip drop off has landed in my yard for the year! My arborist friend was working locally and swung by while I was at work. It appears to be a mixture of primarily pine with some maple mixed in. The majority of this is earmarked for the chicken run and orchard area. I'm hoping to use whatever is left to top off some areas that I chipped several years ago.

Word has it that I might have another load delivering here in the near future. I'm in heaven!

This had been a weekend of mulch hauling and brush clearing. As I type this, I can feel a every so slight ache of a well worked day in my bones.

Right on the property line exists two large, unkempt apple trees that have been there over thirty years. Blackberry canes and bittersweet vines choke the ground and branches out. Some of the vines were two inches wide at the thickest part. The previous fall we cut the vines that were reaching up into the trees and by now they were dried out and brittle. A difficult part of clearing the brush was a pile of cut up applewood that was rotting with time right next to the trees providing cover for the undesirable plants to grow near. It took around six full wheelbarrow of material to get rid of the applewood but we deposited it to a low spot on a hillside.

Many pieces of the log segments were starting to break apart by hand. We utilized a chainsaw to chunk up some large trunk segments and it just ripped straight through them like butter. I'm expecting all of this to turn into nice friable material that will hopefully mulch the hillside in place while benefiting the soil. My quest to restore this hillside continues and I am starting to see the results that I have hope for. My plum trees continue to expand their roots into the soil and perennials planted the prior year have successfully started to re-emerge!

Good stuff Tim.

I have finally finished moving the last of my two woodchip drops and I can feel it in my joints a few days later. I managed to refill my annual garden paths 12" thick, expanded the mulch into my mini-orchard area, expanded the mulched garden in my side yard as well as refreshing my chicken run after removing quite a bit of mostly finished compost at the start of the spring. It was a lot of work but fulfilling work.


Historically, I have utilized softwood chip in the chicken run but this one has a large content of oak to it. I'm curious to see if it persists longer or if the chicken manure will speed up its breakdown. Time will tell! The segments of apple tree (seen at the side) are starting to break down with exposure to the chickens so I'm keeping an eye out for new branch segments to have as perches. With the amount of storms this spring, I'm not worried.

I ended up doing a quick spot-weeding of some grass from the side yard bed as I topped off the chip. The existing chips have been in place for only a year but after plucking out a cluster of grass I was pleasantly surprised with quite a bit of mycelium that had developed over time.

A quick five minute task for the day was swapping out the mower blade.

First things first, when working on any machinery it is advisable to render it inoperable prior to conducting any repairs.



The whole job is pretty simple. Tip the mower on its side, loosen the bolt holding the blade to the spindle, swap the blade for a new blade and then tighten the bolt.



This particular mower needed a 16mm socket.



A note, 'new' mower blades most likely need to be sharpened before being put into use. They come from the factory rather dull.



At the end of the mowing season last year, I managed to whack a curb stop in a particularly stunning fashion which ended up throwing the old blade off balance. I put off the task of dealing with it until spring.

I recently have inherited my great, great grandfather's anvil.



From what I can gather, it's a M and H mousehole anvil. My best guess is that it was produced somewhere around the 1840s to 1870s. At some point, it looks like the horn was removed/broken off?



Pretty neat stuff!