This is the first year I have raked leaves in January. Usually by mid-December, the leaves from every tree in our property are completely gone. Fall went by so fast that the leaves from certain trees didn’t get a chance to completely change colors and fall off. Thanks to the erratic weather we’ve had the last couple of weeks, the last of the leaves from our Sweet Almond tree finally fell off. Many people are also experiencing Fall rather than Winter as their trees are barely losing their leaves. Thanks to a warm and lovely weather this morning, I was outside raking up the fallen leaves and working on a few projects. When Nature surprises me, I seize the moment.
Last month I wrote a post on Rabbits and the damages they cause in the garden. The picture below is one of the four barrel planters they ate from. Today we build four plant stands for the barrel planters using dismantled pieces of wood and slabs we kept from the demolition of an old Stall a couple of years ago. I was not interested in anything fancy, just a simple plant stand, high enough to prevent the Rabbits (and possibly squirrels) from eating the plants. All you need is three pieces of wood, cut same size (the height is up to you) as well as a square piece of wood. You gather your three pieces standing up, making sure they form a triangle and then you place the square piece at the top of your triangle and screw them in (each screw must go into your individual pieces).
Once you’re done, you can decide to paint your finish product or leave it as is.
The final task of the day was to lay Chicken Wire around our Daffodils, Stella D’Oro Daylily and Hyacinth beds (we used tie-down stake to anchor the wire into the ground).
By JM Perez
