COVID-19 Week 1 - A Raised Bed

I'm going to be trying something kind of new at CT Wild Ramblings. Sunday mornings, expect a post. I hope to add more content between Sundays, but as long as life is different under COVID-19 as it is now, I'll be sure to write on Sunday.

It is tough to change habits from a social, outward life to an isolated existence. This has been obvious for me this past week. I miss going to breweries, having dinners with my dad at his house, and even going for hikes in more popular locations. It will be a bit before I head to the Route 4 parking lot for West Hartford Reservoir. There are also things that I will definitely be missing soon. I don't know when I will see my grandparents next. I work at a grocery store, one of the "essential" businesses still open. Let me tell you, it is a place where social distancing is impossible when there are lines of shoppers waiting when we open.

So how to stay sane? I've found things to do for sure. The backyard wetland seeding project is on the list, as is my raised bed. Last week, before the full force of the virus was realized, my cousin came down to help with construction. We used some old deck boards in the back, and built a 10'x4' raised bed for growing food. It was a real simple design. Materials were:

- Two 4' 2x10s

- Two 10' 2x10s

- Four 12" 4x4s

- Decking screws

That's all you need! We screwed the 2x10s into the 4x4s at each corner, creating a 4'x10' rectangle. In this way, the 4x4s act as sort of an anchor in each corner. If you are without a 4x4, I have it on good authority that it is perfectly acceptable to screw the 2x10s into each other. This will result in a slightly smaller bed, but no less sturdy.

My cousin and I also souped it up a bit. I got some wax cardboard from the grocery store I work at and we tacked it into the sides to line the deck boards. My hope is that this keeps more moisture in the bed, and that it preserves the boards a bit, slowing the inevitable rot even just slightly.

Where things get interesting is soil composition. How to fill this rectangle with material that will support the growth of food? Per the recommendation of my uncle, I am trying out lasagna gardening. Lasagna gardening entails placing layers of material in your bed, creating a mix that drains well, has nutrients, and ultimately produces more food than an uncultivated bed. The layers are as follows from bottom to top:

Cardboard. One layer between the ground and your garden. It will smother any grass or weeds, and slowly break down until the raised bed becomes sort of an extension of the ground below.

Bits of sticks or woodchips. For drainage and to provide the rough organic material needed. I'm finding sticks around my yard and in the back woods and breaking them up by hand.

Leaves or straw. To provide air in the soil, which helps roots take hold. I'll be raking out my garden beds today to collect this, and heading once again to the woods if needed.

Compost. This is the plant food. The more composted the material is the better. My compost bin is a bit of a mystery, having never been turned over the ten or so years its been there. But that's what I'll be using.

Manure. This is like extra-strength plant food. Organic is better of course! I bought three bags at the hardware store.

Topsoil*. Now, had this project been started in the fall, the above ingredients would create the soil through the winter and additional topsoil would not be necessary. But it is March, and my concoction will not be ready in time for planting. I'm hoping to get a truckload in the next week or so (if garden centers are considered essential...)

We'll see how it goes! Here is a link to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden's guide. Theirs is geared towards urban gardens with pavement below. My bed is only a foot high, and there is grass and soil below, so I necessarily changed the measurements for each ingredient. Its so funny. Following a soil recipe is a lot like following a food recipe!

My House on the Wetland

NOTE: The following was written four days ago. I just got around to finishing and publishing today! Enjoy.

It has been a busy busy couple of weeks. NO hikes. Not one. You would think with the COVID19 scare and everything that I would be making it a point to get outside and hike. Well, I am, but I haven't. My time outside has been in the service of my yard, and specifically, its capacity to produce food and support a healthy ecosystem. That said, things are looking good for the rest of this week. I may even adventure out tomorrow.

The yard is taking shape. The bird feeder is well-established at this point, a familiar jaunt for many birds in the area. I've enjoyed the uptick in nuthatches over the past two weeks. The grass is beginning to green. Some daffodils are starting to put up green shoots in the bed next to the deck. But there is work to be done. With any moderate rainfall (or snowfall two nights ago), the intermittent brook runs over her banks, flooding more than half of the "yard" and reminding me that this is not a healthy hydrology.

My house and my neighborhood were built on wetland. My edge of the neighborhood was the last to be developed, in the 1950s, and it directly abuts a tributary to Trout Brook. This type of development attempts to squeeze water into smaller and smaller areas, freeing up more space for more profitable land uses. But, as we see with my backyard during moderate or heavy rainfall, it is a problematic approach.

I like to think of the ground as a sponge. The development of impermeable surfaces on the land on this wetland (houses, driveways, roads) has squeezed the sponge to the point where its capacity to hold water is severely reduced. And this capacity is important. When we have enough of it, we retain control of the water. Risk of flood goes down. Our riparian and wetland areas are healthier. But in this neighborhood, ths sponge is squeezed. Rain water quickly fills and then runs right over our inundated sponge. Yards flood. Basements flood. As I've seen once before as a kid, a particularly intense rain event can flood roads.

So how to help? My goal is to create a natural succession from the red maple swamp on the other side of the stream, to my house, which should remain above the water table at all costs! My strategy has two objectives - to maximize the potential of what exists in the yard, and add to that potential with introduced species and ecosystems. The first part is a post for another day. There was a massive willow tree that fell a few years ago. Its stump (4 foot diameter) is producing plentiful sprouts, which I hope to regenerate into a smaller iteration of the old behemoth.

But right now I am working on the ground level. In the coming weeks, I will be saying goodbye to about half my "yard," as I now know it, and re-seeding it with native grasses, sedges, and wildflowers. A recent trip to New England Wetland Plants in Amherst Massachusetts provided me with one pound of their wetland seed mix, or "WetMix." It was pricey, but the plants provided thrive in wet soils. Included are fox sedge, lurid sedge, fowl bluegrass, blue vervain, blunt broom sedge, fringed sedge, green bulrush, swamp milkweed, soft rush, New York ironweed, blue flag, bristly sedge, wool grass, and everyone's favorite spotted joepye weed.

All of these projects put together, I hope, will improve the quality of my yard, both as a sponge during rain events and as an ecosystem for the birds, insects, and everything that calls the wetland out back home.

What happened and what's next?

I like busy weeks, and I just had two of them. There were hikes, there was food, family get-togethers, and not quite enough sleep. Here's an update on some highlights, and what to look forward to.

A few hikes! Me and the dog Jay did a lot of exploring in the West Hartford reservoirs and Rattlesnake Mountain/Pinnacle area. Some of our hikes were poorly planned, ending in long bushwhacks and narrow escapes in time for me to avoid being late to work.

At this point I have visited my secret sunrise spot near the reservoirs four times, including once with some family. I found out that it is much easier to access from the parking lot off Route 4. Coming south from Route 44 requires some expert footwork on one stretch of old woods road that rises at an impossible angle from the edge of the reservoir. Plus it is a lot farther. With that being said, when I do head out for a sunrise hike, it is going to have to be from 44, as the Route 4 lot is closed dusk to dawn. Should be a fun time, provided my headlamp does its job.

Another hike of note was in the Plainville/New Britain/Farmington area. Me and the dog Jay set out to explore "Dead Wood Swamp," a massive wetland just west of I-84. It is the headwaters of the Quinnipiac River and an important hydrologic and ecologic zone in an otherwise highly developed area. We climbed up to the Pinnacle from Cooks Gap near 84, then began our eastward descent. Before too long we had crossed the remains of the Nike Missile site, a particularly large stone wall, and were following a narrow two-track toward the sound of the highway.

The trail was muddy. It had been a cold morning, but any freezing had been undone by the afternoon sun. The overstory maples and birches began thinning out, and the swamp came into view. I think winter might be the only time to go check out the area. I imagine that the combination of bugs and mud do not exactly enhance the experience when it is warmer. There were also a lot of thorns we had to struggle through. Even though, we made it clear through to the end of the path, arriving at a nondescript stretch of I-84.

We had to hustle out of the woods from there, but subsequent research revealed to me that I was in the area of Hospital Rock, a relic of the smallpox inoculation hospital that existed in the late 18th century. The rock was a drop-off place for relatives wishing their loved ones well as they waited for the contagious period to run out in quarantine. Patients would inscribe their name on the rock and the year. Even today, you can see at least fifty names written on the rock, provided you can find it. I will certainly be returning to the area to find the rock soon!

So what's next? I don't like writing posts like this. These hikes were at least a week ago, and my memory is much clearer the day of or day after. So I feel confident that I will be posting more frequently in the future, and within a few days of my Ramblings. Tomorrow and Friday will be project days. I'll be building a raised bed in my backyard. Expect pictures. And a little further down the road, I will be making seed balls to encourage native vegetation. More on what that means when it happens.

With the weather warming up, it should be a productive spring!