Yesterday we installed a pretty thorough drip irrigation system in both the front and back yards.

The front yard has about 40 feet of soaker hose covering the flowers outside the fence (finally, watering those was quite a chore) and a dripper doohicky for each of the 10 three sisters mounds. The back yard, with its 60 feet of corn rows just has a soaker hose down the top of each row.

Watering is a lot easier now, and I this should also help with weeds because we won't have as much excess water all over the place.

Over the weekend I also got some seedlings started indoors. Rather than going out and buying a bunch of those recycled paper pulp mini seedling pots I decided to make my own. Not only are the store-bought ones kind of expensive for what they are - I've never had much luck with them. The roots grow out of them slightly, but they don't come apart well if you try to plant the seedlings in the pots, but the roots grow into the sides enough that you hurt them trying to peel the pot off. It's a mess I didn't care to repeat this year.

We've got this stump in our front yard. It's partially hollow, and always spends the spring and summer incredibly full of Black Widow spiders. Last year we tried building a little trellis on top and growing beans up it. It was nicer looking, but only made the spider problem worse.

I fixed it yesterday though! Just a couple of boards affixed into the gap in the side with copper coated hanger strap, and then a few bucketfuls of dirt.

Then I ringed the top in rocks, which I varied the size of to level off the top.