Leaf mulching

You know we love our compost, and we've always added some autumn leaves to the mix, but our yard collects far more leaves than we could possibly fit into our one average-sized home compost bin. I usually add light piles of leaves to some planted areas of the yard to serve as winter protection and later spring nutrients, but even still, there is an excess

The remaining options, then, are bagging the leaves for city pickup, which is fine. Those'll be composted somewhere. Or, I've seen people compress leaves into fire-starter bricks, which is project I'd maybe try. Maybe. Or, we could just leave the leaves be like a natural forest floor, but I think there are so many that our yard would indeed look like a forest floor--i.e., mossy dirt and leaves, because the heavy cover of leaves would kill the grass by smothering it or harboring mold. 

But there is yet another option. 

This year, we mulched the leaves. The smaller pieces will break down faster and mix more easily with  soil and other compostables, so we can add more of them to the compost bin and plant beds than we would have with whole leaves. Many of the chopped-up leaves can also be left to spread around the yard, because they can nestle down between blades of grass to the soil level, where they will break down faster while letting the grass grow through.

Some of the leaf bits will just blow away, sure, but because they are smaller, they can blow all over and disintegrate sooner rather than getting caught in a big pile along the curb where whole leaves tend to clog the storm drains.

Converting the thick carpet of maple leaves in our backyard into fall confetti.

We accomplished our mulching with our two electric leaf blowers that, handily, also work as leaf vacuums and mulchers. Guess where we got them.

Go on, guess!

All together now: Someone was throwing them out!

Actually, I think one of them may have been a Goodwill find. Regardless, here we are again with our second-hand lawn equipment, which may have required a little duct tape but worked out great. We attached a bag to one blower to collect some of the mulch for the compost bin and flower beds. The rest, we just let fly into the air and settle all across the lawn. (And in our hair and down the backs of our shirts...)

The yard looks messy by immaculate suburbanite standards, what with the mulched leaf bits all over the place, but there aren't piles of leaves anymore, and the grass shows through. My hope is that these chopped leaves will provide a little insulation to my bedded plants over the winter and then decompose into leaf mold (a.k.a. composted leaves, not to be confused with fuzzy mold that grows in damp places) where they sit, thereby feeding the grass and flower beds throughout the spring thaw.

.

Photo Showcase: Steps toward home improvement

Len spent several weeknights preparing us for the second winter in our new old house. With kits of sheet plastic and double-sided tape, he has insulated most of our windows from the inside. True, disposable plastic is not the most sustainable approach to weather-proofing a house; however, most things in life require compromise. Here, the tradeoff is generating future garbage (when we remove and dispose of the temporary insulation in spring) in order to use less natural gas (because our furnace won't have to work so hard if the windows aren't letting cold air in and warm air out). You know the insulation kits are working, by the way, when the plastic breathes with the wind outside. Some of our windows are so drafty, the plastic sheeting bulges with pockets of the cold air that would otherwise be whooshing through our dining room.

We have long-term plans for restoring our 111-year-old windows back to perfect functionality and for replacing our dilapidated aluminum storm windows with historically accurate wooden ones that fit properly. News flash: Whole-house window restoration is a big, expensive project.

We knew of this eventual expense going in. We bought the old house knowing that its maintenance would be our new major "hobby." Some people save up their money to spend it on a motorcycle, or travel, or horses, or raising kids. We have prepared to spend ours on this house. And now, it's all about what projects to put money toward and when.

The city of Aurora has in the past offered a historical preservation grant for homeowners in the historic districts. We can apply for grant assistance to get some work done on our home, as long as it is exterior work that helps preserve the historical architecture and character of the neighborhood. We applied for the grant last year to tackle the windows. We were not one of the awardees. However, we listened to the grant committee meeting and garnered useful information about what else they'd like to see restored/repaired on our house.

One of those items was correcting the railing on our front porch steps. It was iron and losing some structural integrity, but it should be wooden and sound. Well, we can get that project done without grant assistance! Let's do it now as proof of our commitment to historical preservation, and we'll live with the crummy windows another year in the hopes of applying for the grant again.

So the saga of the front porch steps began. I'll sum it up briefly.

In June, Len finally found a carpenter who was willing to work within the historic district and obtain the appropriate permits. The steps would be entirely rebuilt, including lovely wooden railings. 

With drawings finally approved and permits obtained, in October, the carpenters made quick work of removing the old stairs... 

Then they were gone for awhile. 

They brought back supplies. And left again for awhile.

Eventually they came back to cut and install the stringers.

At this point, the city inspector had to approve the installation so far. He didn't. 

In a few days, the carpenters fixed the way the header board and stringers were attached to the house and got approval, but they didn't continue building right away.

Halloween loomed near.

On a cold misty day in late October, the carpenters came back and quickly affixed the treads and toe kicks (no railings yet), so at least we could host trick-or-treaters.

In early November, they finished the build. Looks nice, huh? They requested final inspection.

More than two weeks later, the city inspector finally came out and... did not approve the steps.

It's now mid-November, and we're waiting for the carpenters to return, to re-do stuff, and to re-request inspection.

All this to show the Historic Preservation Commission, "See? We're doing the stuff you think we should do! Please give us money to do more of it." We don't even know yet if they will continue the grant program in 2022.

.

Water Update

I was excited to report back in June that we had lowered our own water usage by about 750 gallons (over 2 months). Well, we kept at it -- from little things like shutting off the faucet during those proscribed 20 seconds we're soaping our hands, to medium things like taking shorter or less frequent showers, to the bigger things like watering our outdoor (and indoor) plants solely from the rain barrels -- until they ran dry; I admit to hauling out the hose a few times. And, the results are in.

Our water bill for our May and June usage was down to just 2 CCFs! That means we cut our average water usage in half. How about that? 

Such reduction doesn't cut our water bill in half, mind you. There's a flat fee for service, but each CCF used or not used will add or subtract, respectively, about $5. The separate sewer bill is also a little bit lower, because it is also based on water usage. Over a year, those few monthly dollars add up, sure, but this is less about the money savings (where you'd typically see a higher return by reducing your gas and electric usage) than it is about the environmental impact.

It's easier to think about water conservation in the warm months, when gardens need to be watered, and pools "need" to be swum in. However, our consumption awareness must continue through the winter. The western United States is still, today, experiencing extreme and excessive drought. Even here in northern Illinois, despite the seemingly abundant gray skies of November, things are "abnormally dry." Again, I refer you to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Back to our record 2-CCFs water bill. During May and June 2021, we used approximately 750 gallons per month, or roughly 180-190 gallons per week, or 25 gallons per day. In some ways that number seems low, but imagine having 25 gallon-size jugs, some of them sitting on your kitchen counter and several others hanging out in your bathroom. And you're going to go through all 25 of those in just one day. It seems like a crazy amount of water!

We easily use less than that per day when we're camping, but when we're roughing it, we naturally use water very conservatively. Based on that observation, clearly showers, toilets, and laundry make the biggest impact. Dish-washing is also a potential area for improvement.

Our next water bill, for July and August, was back up to 3 CCFs -- higher than our lowest usage, but still lower than our original average. We're happy about that, but the drive for self-competition inspires me to keep trying to be even more conservative -- when it comes to water usage, that is.

.

Garden Shutdown

 Chilly but sunny, this past weekend was perfect for some yardwork, as in closing down the garden for the season. We've already had a few mornings of frost, so the tomatoes are done anyway. Most of the trees around us have yet to drop their leaves, though, so that other big cleanup awaits.

We emptied the rain barrels and turned them upside down for the winter. They were both full, but we have little watering to do now. We used several gallons to give our perennials the scraggliest patches of lawn one last soak, and set some aside for the indoor plants, but most of it went into the street, to the storm sewers, where rain water naturally goes when you're not catching as much of it as you can.

We emptied the container garden -- the cut tin troughs of herbs, the large pots of tomatoes, the smaller pots of ornamentals. I have uprooted and potted two begonias to try to overwinter them indoors. If you know me, I am notoriously deadly to flowering houseplants... we'll see.

We also needed to make room in the compost bin for winter's kitchen scraps. I did my best to pull out all the "unfinished" compost, that is, the still-identifiable plant matter -- grass clippings, corn husks, dog fur from the vacuum, recently tossed romaine cores. You know, all the stuff that hasn't broken down all the way. I piled it onto a tarp so I could put back the bin later. 

For now, what we wanted was the stuff filling the bottom half of our bin, the rich, dark compost that looks quite like potting soil. It's full of worms, too. Nice, healthy food for the garden.

So, we spread this finished (or near finished) compost around our fruit trees, hostas, perennial flowers and herbs, strawberries, raspberries, onions, and rhubarb. My hope is that it will sit there on top and then, as the snow melts in the spring, it will slowly leech its way into the soil and provide a boost of nutrients to these plants' roots. Meanwhile, all the unfinished compost goes back into the bin, but now there is room for some of those fall leaves and a winter's worth of kitchen scraps before we stir it again in the spring.

.

Some bites (bytes?) of food

Popular Science has been spending September relearning how to eat. Is it because it's Food Safety Education Month? I don't know. And, I didn't notice they were writing to this theme until this week, when I saw this article in my inbox: How to Forage Your Way Through Your Neighborhood. It's a cursory overview of how to take advantage of the free and plentiful (hello, crab apples!) produce of the natural world.

Peruse the PopSci site and you'll find tons of other fun food nuggets they've published recently. A few that grabbed my attention talk about:

• How to start eating bugs (they're the sustainable protein of the future),
• A closer look at the environmental impact of reusable kitchen items vs. their disposable counterparts,
• The taste of color,
• And, of course there is also an article on the food waste in our own homes.

.

Cider Update, late August

Just under three weeks from first press, 19 days to be exact, on August 21, we bottled 22 liters of the crab apple cider. Final gravity (after adjusting for temperature) was 1.024, giving us a 6.4% ABV. 

Now, here's the thing. These small, bright pink crab apples already have a high sugar content on their own, and the addition of honey pushes that to a potential alcohol content of 9%. What I'm saying is, at this stage, the wild yeasts have not yet consumed all the available sugar. If we allow the cider to continue fermenting, it will result in not only higher ABV but also higher pressure as the process produces carbon dioxide. (That's right, yeast farts.) Too high a pressure, and we get bottle bombs. Not a fun surprise. Very difficult to clean up. Also, longer fermentation means less sugar, but we really like the sweet-tart taste right now.

So. Moving the liquid from the fermentation bucket to the bottles aerates the cider enough that all the carbon dioxide dissipates. Flat soda. Because we like our cider to sparkle, we let the bottles sit at room temperature another three days, when we can see a ring of bubbles in the neck of every bottle. Then, we cold crash them.

Cold crash! I.e., refrigerate. Chilling the cider pauses -- or at least slows down -- the fermentation. I say "pause" and not "stop" because refrigeration does not kill this wild apple yeast; rather, it forces it into dormancy. We must now keep the cider chilled or else the yeast will wake up, and fermentation will resume. (We bought a used wine fridge for this very purpose.) Even in the fridge, the yeast may very slowly continue their work, and over the months, the cider may grow slowly stronger, drier, and fizzier. We will monitor any changes as we drink through our inventory.

The next update will focus on our second batch of cider, made with a variety of wild apples from around the area. It includes three quarts of pink crab apple cider; you may remember my passing mention of Experiment #1, for which we pressed a second load of the pink crab apples.

See the quarts of fresh pink crab apple cider we froze, now thawing here three weeks later to be mixed with the apple cider. For contrast, on the right is a glass of the original pink cider after fermentation and bottling. It lost its rosy color but kept that sweet pucker--and made an excellent refreshment to accompany the full-day's work of processing our next round cider Labor Day weekend.

.

Summer 2021 Garden Update

Once again, someone was throwing something out. Some things. Several of these galvanized windowsill planters, originally sold with seeds and peat pellets for themed herb and vegetable gardens, were in the trash, seemingly unused, now just empty little troughs. Len had some length of chain left over from a project or some long-ago dismantled item, so he made for me this cute, hanging herb garden. We faced the planters backward to hide the labels "Cocktail Garden," "Italian Garden," and "Taco Garden," since those do not accurately describe what's growing in the containers—and, yeah, for a cleaner, unified look. 

I'm certain the Italian and taco gardens would have come with tomato seeds, and I just don't believe a tomato plant would grow very heartily from such a small container. Maybe that's why they were thrown out. I'm sticking to herbs, small hot peppers, and edible flowers.

I have been enjoying this herb garden, which includes my hopeful perennials on the ground (marjoram, tarragon, thyme, rosemary that I will try overwintering indoors, oregano, parsley, and a probably dead sage) and some annuals in the cute hanging arrangement (marigolds, chamomile, cilantro, basil, and a late-arrival tabasco pepper plant that is only just now getting buds). I find reasons to use fresh herbs in most recipes these days, and almost daily I pick 5 or so chamomile blossoms and lay them on a newspaper in the basement, where they can dry out before I store them in a little glass container (for making chamomile tea later, if you couldn't guess).

Spearmint and lemon balm are sequestered elsewhere in the yard, since the mint family tends to hardily take over any space within reach. 

The herbs are probably my best performers in the garden this year. At last, in late summer, our tomatoes are beginning to ripen.

Meanwhile, the strawberry plants have not spread as vigorously as I'd hoped and even seem to be dying back. It's hard to tell. I see new leaves grow and other sections go brown. Same with the rhubarb. We didn't eat any this year, as the shock of transplant stunted its growth and spurred flowering, but I do see new stalks appearing while others seem to be dying off. I don't know what's normal. As usual with my haphazard gardening, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a strong reemergence next spring.

In the category of fun stuff, we got some volunteer sunflowers from seeds left behind by last year's sunflower patch. They were conveniently growing on the edge of our now-designated apple tree space, so I let them stay. None of them seem to be the mammoth variety, at least not in flower head size, but they are taller than last year! (And there, below them, our espaliered apple trees are beginning to take shape. I need to fix those guide wires, which are all loose and wonky after someone bent one of our posts! Can you believe it?)

Speaking of trees, I've been spraying a homemade concoction weekly on the cherry and apple trees to combat what is either a fungus or an insect putting holes in the cherry leaves and potentially affecting future growth. I guess I'm not seeing further damage, but observations are ongoing.

Our other gardening of late has been toward ornamental goals. When the nursery/greenhouse near us put flowering perennials on discount, I bought some cone flowers, larkspur, asclepias, and coreopsis to add to the previously "installed" dianthus and creeping phlox. I also transplanted some tiger lilies from my aunt's yard, which she originally transplanted from my great-grandmother's yard. Then, Len found free hostas on an online marketplace, so we drove to the neighboring town to dig up some plants from a generous stranger's yard and further beautified the bare soil around our back patio.

All of this, including the still-fragile grass we planted in our lawn months ago, I've been diligently watering solely from our rain barrels. It takes more time and effort (especially time) than just using the hose, and as a result, I'm certainly giving the plants less water than the people who soak their gardens daily with a heavy stream from their spigot. I'm sure that's why they have such lush gardens comparatively, but my plants are alive (mostly), and I'm happy to know we can enhance our green space without the toll on natural resources. 

The rain barrels have reached near empty during a couple of especially hot, dry spells, after which we audibly cheered on the rain storms that broke the temporary drought (and watched some neighbor kids danced in the downpour). Here's to the bursts of rain that offset the heat these past couple of weeks. Maybe we can enjoy an actual tomato and pepper harvest before cool weather comes. Say it with me: Fingers crossed!

.