Chipping Slabs and Mulching the Flower Beds

Every spring the flower beds need to be spruced up. When we first moved here we had a dump truck of mulch delivered and that lasted for a couple of years. But with all the extra slabs we have around since we got the sawmill we decided to make our own mulch the past few years.

So before we could get to spreading the mulch, we needed to get the chipper out and make some. On the first day the wind was working against us. Where have you heard that before. We thought we would save time and fire the chips right into the dump cart. Of course with the wind, only a fraction of the chips were actually landing in the cart. But without the wind this would have been our fastest option.

A few years back Jim came up with the idea of a homemade shoot to direct the chips in the cart. It was made for our old chipper which was much smaller, but we decided to give it a try anyways.

Well, our old chipper wasn’t nearly as powerful as this one, and so the force of the chips hitting the cart made them mostly bounce out or get blown out.

So we dug out the old sides Jim had made for the cart and that was worse. It was snowing chips at this point.

The sides only acted as a wind tunnel of sorts and there were no chips in the cart at all. Back to square one.

We decided to just shoot the chips into a pile on the ground and shovel them into the cart. This manual labour is for the birds.

With the cart filled to the brim it was off to the flower beds where there would be more manual labour emptying the cart. I detect a theme here.

Once we had the hill covered we started on the smaller beds and apple and birch trees.

Next up was the fruit trees bed.

And after about 15 or so loads we had all the beds done for another year.

There are a few plants growing in this bed but others have been planted only to die, so we decided to add another rock to the bed.

When we cleared the land behind the garage, there were many large boulders that we set aside. I knew I would find one the perfect size, and I did.

Jim had to move some logs out of the way in order to get at the rock.

Once we got it out we decided to give it a good wash with the power washer.

Then it was off to the flower bed.

Turns out it is the same color as the other one we put there last year. Jim had a plausible explanation for their purple coloring, could be BS, not sure.

Jim says; Wait now, That’s not BS. I read online years ago that there was a lot of volcanic activity in the area. The conglomerate rock, along with the local rock that have a distinct heat signature, and the presence of Igneous rock…. yes, I said Igneous rock. Of course, it could just be rock that was pushed here by the glaciers of the last ice age. I read it online, so it must be true 🙂

I’m going to try some more plants this year, wish me luck with that.

Before I go, we put out our hummingbird feeders on Friday evening. It is usually around this time of year that they start to arrive. Yesterday we spotted the first male.

Hopefully there will be a big sale on sugar soon so we can stock up.

Later