Red Oak Seedling at One Year Old. 10.24.2020

 Here is a red oak tree that I grew from an acorn.  It's one of the few that deer missed on their dinner night out in my garden.  Now it has brilliant red leaves.  Some of the others were a nice red too, but this one is incredible.  I fond a nice location for it and planted in the ground, with some fencing for protection.  Red oaks grow faster than while oaks, so it has potential to reach at least "tree size" during my lifetime

I imagine that the other deer marauding victims will recover and grow next year.  There are a couple that I would like to save.  I also noted that while the red oaks were de-leafed, the white oaks were left untouched.  Tougher, smaller leaves?  Or just not noticed?

Remodeling a Plant Stand. 10.15.2020

 This has been my plant stand for starting vegetable seeds, for about 20 years.  Most of it is metal, but the tabletop was particle board with some sort of plastic or contact paper to look like faux wood, sort of.

The metal parts are in fairly good shape.  They can be cleaned of with steel wool and given a couple of coats of Rust-oleum.  I'm leaning towards a bronze look, which matches other furniture in the sun room.

I found a plank a little more than twice as long as the table top, and a bit more than half as wide.  I cut two pieces, and edge glued them, along with three braces on the underside which I glued into place and "clamped" with drywall screws.  I also found some 1 x 2 trim in the shed and cut to make a trim all around.  After installing that, using wood glue and 1 1/2 inch nails, I have the general look that I want.

Since this will be a plant stand, I'd like for it to be a bit more water tolerant.  I might finish the top using vinyl plank flooring left over from a bedroom remodel.  I could paint the trim either the same bronze, or black.   I'm not sure yet.  The wood is nothing special at all, but I could do a dark stain and apply a few coats of polyurethane.

Plant stand before starting.  You can't tell, but that fake wood grain plastic coating just peeled off like badly sunburned skin.

 

It disassembled fairly easily.  This is one of those assemble-with-an-allen-wrench types of furniture.  That metal frame is nice and sturdy.  

I sat the cut pieces of wood on the bottom section to look at them for a while.

After gluing and fastening the two planks together, same for braces on underside, and installing edging.

There is still a front piece to install, but this is most of the construction.  I don't want to install the drawers again.  They are just ugly and useless.  The front piece will somewhat hide the lights that I want to install under the table top.   The new top is almost interesting enough to apply some sort of whitewash type finish, if there is something water-proof that I could use for a seal.  I still think I'm most likely to pain the trim black, or dark grey, and install vinyl flooring as the top surface.  It's just more practical for a plant starting station.

I like this enough so far, I might make a similar wide shelf for the lower part to start vegetable plants under LED plant lights.  The current shelf is narrow metal.  I'm sure there are more wood planks in the shed.  I guess I should finish this part before embellishing it with something more.

Now to wait for Amazon to deliver the wood fillers and Rust-oleum.  I'm not into going to Home Depot for a viral version of Russian Roulette just yet.

Deer Damage. 10.15.2020

 Yesterday when I was checking the shed, I forgot to close the garden gate.  That's the only time I forgot, all year.

With deer, it only takes once.  They completely defoliated every miniature apple tree, every espalier apple tree, and grabbed a few raspberry leaves too.

It's hard to take a photo of something that's not there.  In this case, leaves.  I'm beyond discouraged.  I suppose that this late in the year, that just means they will head into dormancy.  I hope they won't be set back much and won't try to regrow.  Dammit.

Installing Home-Made Shed Doors. 10.15.2020

 This project is almost done.  The shed needs some clean up and painting, and a garden tool rack.  The biggest job was getting myself in gear to make and install a new set of doors.

I posted earlier about how I made the doors.  I cut them from an available sheet of siding, with 1 x 4 lumber cut to make supporting framing and trim.  Then glued them on, with drywall screws, screwed in from the inside aspect while the glue was wet.  Grout and paint.  

The shed turned out to be leaning, which I can't fix.  I installed the doors level, which meant some creative door hanging.  It came out OK.   It's also not in great condition - it was sat on the bare ground who knows how many years ago.  There is dry rot.  Still, it's a shed, not a house.  Getting it working for a couple of years would be OK. 

Here is how it looks now, with the doors and trim installed and the trim grouted. 

That turned out pretty good.  I saved the 2 x 4 framing from the old door, to make a tool rack.  The rest is falling apart, so the boards go to the wood pile and the siding goes to the trash.

For comparison, here was the shed a few days ago.

If there's another warm sunny day, I can scrape and paint. Otherwise, that part will await Spring.

Yates American Persimmons. Early Harvest. 10.11.2020

 These persimmons are about a month early.  They were already falling off the tree.  Yates is an American persimmon (Diospyros virginiana), so smaller than grocery store Asian persimmons (Diospyros kaki), but with a richer flavor, like apricots with spices and drenched in wildflower honey.  These were just that good.

This tree is fenced, which is good.  I'm sure the critters would have absconded with all of these, leaving me none.