ET's Info-Stew

I just spent the last 4 hours doing yard work, and I'm pooped. Jenny helped a lot, but she got to miss out on a bunch of it because she had some errands to run. All the work was in the landscaped front yard, and unfortunately it's still not done. We trimmed most of the trimmable bushes and plants, and pulled most of the weeds, but there still some work to be done there. Most of the time was spent trying to get all the leaves in a pile. Yep, the pile is still there, along with the bush trimmings, sitting in our driveway. The pile is so big that a big tarp doesn't even come close to covering it. Making that pile go away is a job for tomorrow. This all has to be done by tomorrow evening for two reasons: 1) we are possibly getting our lawns winterized Thursday morning, and 2) the weatherman is forecasting up to 14 inches of snow starting tomorrow night. The sprinklers still need to be blown, and the back yard still needs some tidying up. A layer of snow over leaves causes the leaves to get all mushy, making clean-up more difficult.

I did a poor job of yard work this year and I want to do better next year so that the house looks better and there's a lot less work to do in big chunks

Mowing: I only mowed the back yard a handful of times making each time a big effort. Mowing every weekend takes 20 minutes and is a lot less work.

Trimming: Jenny and I trimmed backyard bushes a couple times this year, but never picked them up the mess. It's still lying there, actually. In the future we need to pick that stuff up right away.

Fall preparation: It's nice to keep the grass green and healthy for as long as possible, but that is also a cause for difficulty later. Raking up leaves with full bushes in a pain, and trimming bushes smothered in leaves isn't any better. So I'm going to stop watering the lawn in September. Then, on a good weekend, I'm going to trim all the front yard bushes to their winter heights (in most cases down to the dirt). Turning off the water early will also allow me to get the sprinklers blown before the first freeze.

Raking: It'd be nice to commit to keeping up on the leave raking, but I'm not sure I'm ready to do that. This year there was a decent amount of snow already fallen before the leaves even started dropping. Today was one of the only days that it was actually possible to rake.

Winterizing: Usually people get their lawns plugged about the same time they get their sprinklers blown. But I'm worried that by doing that we'd end up raking up the dirt chunks, and over time we'd end up losing a lot of top soil. I'll have to ask around how others do that.

So, with the above plan, hopefully next year's fall yardwork won't be so bad.