South Eastern Connecticut Landscaping

Home maintenance issues can spring on you when you least expect it. Especially when it’s a chore you really hate doing. I hate cleaning gutters. It’s nasty and wet and… ugh! So I conveniently forget about it for a while.

The bedrooms are on the second floor of our home, and as I woke the other day I looked over and noticed the gutters were filled with leaves and debris. I knew that water had to have been overflowing and the downspouts were probably even plugged. I thought back to when I cleaned them last and couldn’t remember offhand. That’s never a good sign.

So, I leaned over, kissed my wife on the cheek and headed out the garage to get my ladder. Cleaning out the gutters isn’t difficult; it’s just long and gross work.

1. The materials: You are going to need a sturdy step ladder that can reach to the roof. You won’t actually be on the roof, but you will need to be at roof level. A garbage bag for debris and a trowel to scoop up the nasties. A garden hose for down spout leaning.

2. The gutter process: Choose an area to start; it doesn’t really matter where, since you are going around the entire house. Place the garbage bag on the roof, so you don’t have to carry it with you. When it fills up, you can throw it to the ground and get out a new one.

Use your hands to scoop up the dry and slightly wet leaves and place them into the bag. If it has been a while since your last cleaning, then dirt and debris have likely settled to the bottom and become a caked-on layer. Use the trowel to scoop it up, but be careful not to poke a hole in the gutter. Repeat for the length of the house.

You should take breaks every hour or two. Standing on a ladder for a long period of time can be hard on your back, especially with all the arm movements and twisting you are doing to clean the gutter.

3. The downspouts: There are several downspouts along the gutter system. The spouts take the water flowing from the gutters and transports it to ground level. These can become clogged, as well, and are a bit more difficult to clean than the gutters.

Test if they are clogged by pouring water into the downspout. If the water comes out, then you’re good and can head inside for a well-deserved cold one. If not, then gird up your armor. Take a garden hose and stick it inside the downspout and turn it on. The water will hit the clog and ideally knock it loose. If you have a nozzle to adjust the spray strength, then that’s even better. If the clog persists, then run the hose down into the spout until it hits the clog and hope that knock out the clog.

If that still doesn’t break it loose, then you may have to use a stick to knock it loose if it is near. Sometimes a plumber’s snake can help, as well. Otherwise, you have to remove the down spout and disassemble it to find the clog. That is not fun. You should be careful because, just like the gutter, the downspout is a little flimsy and easily punctured.

Try and clean your gutters once a year. It’s an afternoon job, preferably on a warm spring day. Don’t be like me and procrastinate; that only makes the chore harder.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/akeg/2529849524

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There are few things more disgusting than trying to clean up sewage in your basement. Once the yucky poo water has been transferred out of the basement, the cleanup has only just begun.

The sewage comes up from the drain and spreads outward, and anything in its path gets covered in… stuff. Cardboard boxes are ruined, as well as whatever is inside of them. If you used the basement to store any paper products as books, then they are pretty much ruined, regardless of whether or not they actually came in contact with the water.

If the moisture didn’t destroy them, then the smell will likely permeate into the pages, and your books will forever smell of poo water. You can hire professionals to take care of the mess, but that will cost you a boatload of money. If you are going to take care of it yourself, then you are going to need a boatload of garbage bags, rubber gloves, bleach and, depending on your city, garbage stickers for all the extra bags you will put out on the corner.

With the drain clear, the sewage will head back into the sewer, and everything will seep into the drain after a day or two, and then the basement will dry out quickly. You may need to wait a day or so before you can really begin the cleanup. You don’t want to be ankle deep in sewage when you are trying to clean everything up.

When the basement is mostly dry, take the rubber gloves and the garbage bags down and bag up everything that isn’t salvageable. You are going to want to get that to the curb as fast as possible and out of your house. Just be careful that the animals might try and get into it, so try to coordinate everything pretty close to your garbage day.

Once the garbage is up, take about a 30-percent-bleach and 70-percent-water solution and spray the entire basement with it. This will kill the germs and prevent mold growth, but make sure there is plenty of ventilation. When you are done, grab a hose and wash the bleach water and any residue back down into the drain. The water will dry quickly, and your basement will be as good as new.

I would suggest keeping the storage to a minimum, since the backup could happen again. The last thing you want to do is go through all of that again.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/massdep/4563410292

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Here in Illinois, we had our first snowfall of the season this past weekend. Mother Nature dropped about six inches on us and followed it with bitterly cold temperatures and arctic winds.

Had it been warmer, my wife and I would have been outside with the kids building snowmen and having snowball fights, but it was too cold for the little ones. We were then kind of at a loss for what to do during the weekend. My wife would have been happy watching 24 hours of the Hallmark Channel’s Christmas shows.

I looked around the house and saw the perfect time to get things cleaned up and ready for Christmas. Needless to say, the idea of spending our snowed-in weekend cleaning the house was met with a chorus of groans.

In my opinion, winter is the perfect time to do your spring cleaning. You can’t go outside either because of the snow or the cold, the kids have winter break from school and even the place where you work shuts down for a couple days.

By winter cleaning, I am not talking about vacuuming the carpets and getting out the duster. I mean a complete cleaning job. Move the furniture and get that six-month-old cheese curl and dust off the top of the ceiling fan blades.

It’s time to scrub out the toilet, get the mildew off the shower and clean out the dust behind the refrigerator. Don’t forget that Christmas is coming soon, and you are going to be getting new things like toys for the kids, appliances and knick knacks, all for which you need to make room.

Be liberal and throw away or donate everything that you don’t need or want to replace anyway. We went into my children’s toy room and threw away tons of toys that were broken or too old for them. They protested until I told them that we would be buying more toys.

The only downside is that you end up with a lot of garbage bags. If your town or city does not have unlimited trash pickup, then think ahead and buy those garbage stickers so you can put your 20 bags of garbage on the curb.

It may seem like the waste of a weekend, but the satisfaction of waking up to a pristinely clean home is amazing. Also, the cleaning is out of the way, so when spring comes along, you can actually go out and enjoy it.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/eyeliam/2290688775

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Trees are beautiful because of their leaves, but it is inevitable that leaves fall. Historically, homeowners have raked up the leaves, bagged them and thrown them out with the garbage. Now, that is no longer possible.

We need to remember that eons ago, no one raked leaves. Before people stepped in. leaves fell to the forest floor where they mixed with the twigs and were stirred up by small animals. They provided natural mulch in the winter and then broke down, enriching the soil and fertilizing the trees the rest of the year. We need to take a cue from nature and use leaves in our yards as much as possible.

Different parts of your landscape have different needs. You can use leaves all over your yard, but there are some inappropriate places to put them as well.

If you are trying to grow grass on your lawn, allowing the leaves to remain where they fall is not practical. The weight of the wet leaves can suffocate grass and moisture will build up under the leaves and cause a host of fungal diseases. If you have a mulching lawn mower, use it to cut the grass and chop the leaves at the same time. But, if you end up with more than one-fourth to three-eights inch on your lawn, it’s time to go to Plan B.

Put the bagger on your lawn mower and collect the chopped leaves and grass clippings. Then, place them around your shrubs for winterizing mulch. In the past, I didn’t like to recommend using leaves as mulch because they tended to compress and mat down, but when they’re chopped, they tend to loft up slightly. This allows air circulation and prevents them from compacting as quickly into an imperious layer that limits water and air from reaching plant roots. Chopped leaves will also biodegrade more rapidly.

If you mulch your shrubs and still have leaves left, put a four inch layer over your garden and spade it under. This will provide nutrients for next growing season. You can do the same in flowerbeds.

For areas of ground cover, don’t try to remove all leaves. Allowing some to work down into the soil will add nutrients to the soil in these beds as well. Now, don’t allow the entire tree to shed all its leaves on one bed of ground cover. The plants may suffocate and dies. For these areas, I like to use an electric or gas powered vacuum-type leaf remover and take most of the leaves from the bed without having to continually stomp through it or damage plants with a rake.

If you still have some leaves left, add them to your compost pile. Don’t forget to turn it. If you have children, you might want to leave one big pile of leaves in the yard until it really gets cold. Leaf piles, as you may remember, are great for jumping in, throwing around and just generally having a lot of fun with.

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Proper Leaf Cleanup

Trees are beautiful because of their leaves, but it is inevitable that leaves fall. Historically, homeowners have raked up the leaves, bagged them and thrown them out with the garbage. Now, that is no longer possible.

We need to remember that eons ago, no one raked leaves. Before people stepped in. leaves fell to the forest floor where they mixed with the twigs and were stirred up by small animals. They provided natural mulch in the winter and then broke down, enriching the soil and fertilizing the trees the rest of the year. We need to take a cue from nature and use leaves in our yards as much as possible.

Different parts of your landscape have different needs. You can use leaves all over your yard, but there are some inappropriate places to put them as well.

If you are trying to grow grass on your lawn, allowing the leaves to remain where they fall is not practical. The weight of the wet leaves can suffocate grass and moisture will build up under the leaves and cause a host of fungal diseases. If you have a mulching lawn mower, use it to cut the grass and chop the leaves at the same time. But, if you end up with more than one-fourth to three-eights inch on your lawn, it’s time to go to Plan B.

Put the bagger on your lawn mower and collect the chopped leaves and grass clippings. Then, place them around your shrubs for winterizing mulch. In the past, I didn’t like to recommend using leaves as mulch because they tended to compress and mat down, but when they’re chopped, they tend to loft up slightly. This allows air circulation and prevents them from compacting as quickly into an imperious layer that limits water and air from reaching plant roots. Chopped leaves will also biodegrade more rapidly.

If you mulch your shrubs and still have leaves left, put a four inch layer over your garden and spade it under. This will provide nutrients for next growing season. You can do the same in flowerbeds.

For areas of ground cover, don’t try to remove all leaves. Allowing some to work down into the soil will add nutrients to the soil in these beds as well. Now, don’t allow the entire tree to shed all its leaves on one bed of ground cover. The plants may suffocate and dies. For these areas, I like to use an electric or gas powered vacuum-type leaf remover and take most of the leaves from the bed without having to continually stomp through it or damage plants with a rake.

If you still have some leaves left, add them to your compost pile. Don’t forget to turn it. If you have children, you might want to leave one big pile of leaves in the yard until it really gets cold. Leaf piles, as you may remember, are great for jumping in, throwing around and just generally having a lot of fun with.

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Maintaining A Compost Heap

Many people who maintain gardens have a large amount of organic waste, from grass clippings to leaves and dead plants. Unfortunately, many waste money and time having these wastes transported to a landfill. It isn’t just a waste of good compost; it’s a waste of everything that goes into the process of transporting it (the garbage man’s time, the money you pay for the removal, etc). It is truly a travesty.

All this garbage that people are trying to get rid of can be a better supplement for your garden than any fertilizer or chemical. If you properly facilitate the decomposition of all of the garbage, it will alter chemically until it is in such a state that it can be nothing but beneficial nutrition for other plants. Therefore you can turn all the stuff you would have thrown away into top grade fertilizer for your garden.

Usually compost is maintained in a pile somewhere in your backyard. Usually the thought of a compost heap brings disturbing images to ones mind; heaps of rotten garbage emitting a horrid odor. However, if you maintain it correctly you’ll be able to produce great compost without producing an offensive odor. When I first began my compost pile in an effort to improve environmental health, I made several major errors. These included preventing the pile from the oxygen it truly needed, and keeping it to dry. It ended up decomposing in a very non-beneficial way, and producing an odor so foul that I had government agents knocking at my door.

When you are choosing your spot where you will be putting all of these materials, you should aim for a higher square footage. Having a really deep pile of compost is not a good idea, because generally the deeper sections won’t be exposed to anything that is required for the process to work. It is better to spread it all out over a large area. If you have a shed or a tool shack of some sort, it is a possibility to spread it over the roof (with boards to keep it from falling off, of course). I have seen this done several times, and it helps keep the pile out of the way while still maintaining a large square footage.

A compost heap can consist of any organic garbage from your yard, garden or kitchen. This includes leaves, grass, any leftover food that won’t be eaten, or newspaper (no more than a fifth of your pile should consist of newspaper, due to it having a harder time composting with the rest of the materials). Usually if you have a barrel devoted to storing all of these things, it will fill up within several weeks. It is quite easy to obtain compost, but the hard part truly comes in getting it to compost.

After you have begun to get a large assortment of materials in your compost heap, you should moisten the whole pile. This encourages the process of composting. Also chop every element of the pile into the smallest pieces possible. As the materials start to compress and meld together as they decompose, frequently head outside and aerate the pile. You can use a shovel to mix it all up, or an aeration tool to poke dozens of tiny holes into it. Doing this will increase the oxygen flow to each part of the pile, and oxygen is required for any decomposition to take place.

If maintaining a compost pile sounds like something that would interest you, start considering the different placement options. The hardest part about maintaining a pile is choosing a spot that provides enough square footage without intruding on the rest of your yard or garden. While usually you can prevent the horrible odors that most people associate with compost heaps, it’s still not a pleasant thing to have to look at whenever you go for a walk in your garden.

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