Opportunistic

The lawn gets mowed every other week. I probably could have mowed it last week, but I did other things.

I still don't know where I'm going to, ultimately, put the recycling, garbage, and yard waste cans. To mow the lawn, I moved the garbage can up by the AC unit, to get it out of the way.

Forty-five minutes later, when I finish mowing the lawn, I see this.

I mean, 45 minutes is all it took for this spider to spin a web between the deck and the garbage can. I am impressed. I was going to move the can away from the AC but decided to just leave it after seeing this. The web was gone in 3 days and I've since moved the can, but the ingenuousness of spiders is quite astonishing.

Beverage:  English Breakfast Tea

Deb

Weekend Warrior

It was time to do battle with the weeds around the air conditioner. This is a long-term war. It's going to take many battles to win. I needed a reasonably decent day to start the war, one not overly hot and humid.

Step 1: I need to clear around the unit again.

I had cleared this out at the end of May, but, as weeds do, more filled in. With the heavy rains last week, the ground was soft and pulling was much easier. Plus, with all the foliage, the ground was shaded and retained moisture, helping the uprooting process.

After 40 minutes, the area around the unit looked like this.

I had to cut back several small trees and sprayed them with Round-Up in the hopes that kills them. I found four milkweed plants. There has been one monarch in the back yard so I was loathe to pull any milkweeds. But my assessment of the area deemed two of them in the way so I removed them. I'm not sure about the tiger lilies on the south side of the unit. They are blooming so I didn't pull them, but I pulled most of the other ones I found. The clippings pile was fairly big.

At this point, I took a break. I have to watch myself and not overstretch my stamina. I figured I'd leave this pile and deal with it the next day if necessary. But after a 20 minute rest, I (Step 2) cleared the pile into yard waste containers ready to be put out on Wednesday evening. That feels like a success.

Step 3: Time to lay the landscape fabric.

The most important place is in front of the unit. That needs to be clear for air circulation. It took two rows of fabric to cover the area. I've not worked with this before. It's very lightweight and easily blows in any kind of breeze. It also stuck to the bottom of my shoes so smoothing it was a problem. I finally gave up and left the bulges.

Step 4: Mulch.

I bought two colors, black and red. This mulch also comes in a light and dark brown. The black went down first. It didn't cover as much as I hoped it would. I laid another section of fabric and broke up the red bag.

In the clearing of the weeds, I liberated a brick and a couple of rocks. I'm calling them my "strategic" rocks. I probably won't move them. They helped hold down the fabric while I spread the mulch.

I think the red bag went farther than the black bag. I'm fairly certain I spread them to an equal depth. Maybe I didn't.

This was all I could do on Saturday. I only had two bags of mulch and I filled all my yard waste containers. I don't have funds to buy more mulch right now, but this coming weekend, I possibly could pull and cut back the rest of this patch. Then I could spray the small trees in the patch in preparation for covering them with fabric. I know there are more stones and bricks in here. If there are enough, I could put down the fabric, weighing down the corners with stones. At least that would be done. I'm still going to go with the black and red color scheme. I like the blocks of color.

This took two hours to do. I went inside, took a shower and then took a 2 hour nap.

So, I'm not sure what to do with the garbage, recycling and yard waste containers which I've usually lined up here along the edge. To the right of this photo is a very overgrown area adjacent to the shed with the lawnmower. I've given consideration to having the tree service come out, after we get our bonuses, and assuming the bonus is sufficient, and remove all these overgrown trees from this area, grind out the stumps and rake it smooth. Then, I could put the cans over there in the spring, summer and fall, moving them in November near the house where it will be easier to have access to them. I'm thinking, next year, I can put pots of flowers here, or get another raise bed and put the peppers, which aren't doing as well as I'd hoped, over here. Decisions. Decisions. At least this project is started and will be finished this year.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

It's Deck Time, Part 1

We've come through a highly erratic spring with snow, rain, chill, damp, 80 degrees in February, which I know isn't spring, but it plants the seeds, so to speak. This past weekend marks the unofficial beginning of summer. For me, what better way than to spend an hour at Planter's Palette, oogling the offerings. I came home with four flats and one pot of flowers.

Take note of the really dirty birdbath. I have no clue what that red stuff was. I do know birds weren't using the bath at all.

There are 6 flowers in that light blue container to the left. Those were ordered from Select Seeds. I love their plants but I can't, for the life of me, get the delivery correct. They sat in the kitchen for 2 weeks because it was too cold to put them outside. I think it's best that I just don't try to order plants and simply go to the nursery when I'm ready to plant.

Now that I've got most of what I want, it's time to decide what to plant first. The Diva was there to keep me focused on the task at hand. Friends, seeing this photo, have said she has "resting annoyed face".

I decided the first thing to do was liberate the raised bed.

The weeds really took off this spring. The tall stalks are the leftover sunflowers which weren't going back in the bed. They are going out front this year. I've seen one hummingbird around so I need to get flowers planted which are attractive to them. I think I will also put up the feeder. I found it over the weekend. Nothing like a 2 ounce bird to get you inspired.

After weeding, I mixed up the soil and found these.

It's a bit tough to see, but those are earthworms. I am elated! That means, to me, the soil is a good consistency and healthy. Into this box went peppers.

What 15 minutes of weeding can do to transform an area. I should get weed killer and spray around the box to help keep the weeds down. I added the metal poppies although I probably should have washed them out.

The one on the end has a bent stem. I couldn't bend it more straight so it will always be an end poppy. There are orange, yellow, orange, yellow, orange peppers in the box. Those are my favorites. The plants already have peppers on them so perhaps, by July 4th, I'll be eating home grown, assuming the squirrels don't have a taste for peppers.

The peppers are right across from the hosta which has been off the northwest corner of the deck for well 'nigh 20+ years. It's huge this year.

I don't know if the removal of the trash trees to the north and the freeing up of sunlight or what, but it's never been this big. I'm thrilled. The daylilies in the background have started to spread into the lawn to the northwest. That's annoying, but I can mow over what I don't want.

Now on to part 2.

Beverage:  Earl Grey tea

Deb

Tall and Green

A last couple of posts about the Mexican sunflowers I planted last spring.

They were so happy in the raised bed. They easily topped out at the 6 foot maximum height listed on the packet. There were so many flowers which, as I posted earlier were enjoyed by hummingbirds AND by monarch butterflies.

They took over the raised bed. It was glorious. I do feel that glory belongs in the front where others can see it. Plus, I can use the raised bed to grow foodstuffs.

So, I'll try to be better about blogging with photos this year so you can watch their progress as they grow.

Beverage:  Scottish Breakfast tea

Deb

Sunflowers

I planted Mexican sunflowers last year. We think of sunflowers as these.

These are the big, bright smiles from which we get our black oil sunflower seeds. What I planted wasn't anything like these.

They are orange, brilliantly red-orange or orange-red. The flowers themselves are not the dinner plate size we associate with sunflowers. These were, at best, 4-5 inches across. The stalks were tall, eventually topping out at close to 6 feet tall, which is similar to the above sunflowers. They had a lot of leaves, which, I explained, shielded my peppers from the sun, something I had not planned for.

Squirrels and birds love the top sunflower. If you grow them in your yard, you're advised to put a pair of panty hose over the seed head, if you don't want to share. The Mexican ones didn't set a seed head. They attracted something rarer.

I don't know if you can see it. There is a hummingbird at the flower on the left. All summer, from the time these started blooming through just after Labor Day, I had hummingbirds in the yard.

Catching them for a photograph is extraordinarily challenging. He's just above the flower second from the left. There was never more than one around the sunflowers at any given time. Occasionally, one would show up at the front window, almost as if he was asking if there was any nectar.

I am extraordinarily pleased with these plants, but, as I've talked about in previous posts, they need to be somewhere else. I think the front of my house would benefit tremendously from sunflowers. I saw monarch butterflies around them too and you all know how much I adore those. Combined with the milkweed I already grow, this would be a huge boost to their habitat.

The other thing I'm considering is a hummingbird feeder in the front next to the pole feeder and bird bath. The pole feeder was toppled, I believe by yard denizens so I need to anchor it better and deeper in the ground. That has to wait for the thaw to be completely out of the ground and some warmer temperatures. I still have a hummingbird feeder from years ago. I'm debating. It's been decades since I saw these in my yard and then they come back full force. I should decide what to do to encourage them to stay.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

A Raised Oops

A year ago, I contracted with Evergreen Tree Service to remove the trash trees from the north and northwest side of the house. In the interim, since that was done, I have gone one growing season with no garbage stuff on the northwest side of the house. Sitting on the deck was very enjoyable last year. The money I spent was well worth it.

In part of the space, on the south side of the extended downspout, I put a raised bed. In that bed, I decided to grow Mexican sunflowers and my usual peppers. I love fresh peppers from the garden. I don't buy ones which stay green. I buy "chocolate", yellow or, my absolute favorite, orange hued.

The sunflowers came as seeds. I bought these metal poppies and added them to the bed.

I found seed markers amongst all my garden supplies in the basement.

They marked the location of the sunflowers. I realized the poppies would get lost in the sunflowers so moved them to the front of the box.

The sunflowers took off. I swear they grew inches per day. The idea that the poppies cupped shape would hold rainwater did not account for the competition from growing and fully grown plants. If these are to do what it is claimed they do, provide spots of water to hummingbirds and butterflies, I can't plant something which easily eclipses their height. Pepper plants have the potential to interfere, but not like the sunflowers did.

When I bought the deck plants, I added 4 pepper plants to my cart. The sunflowers had just pushed through the dirt. Planters Palette puts out three-quarter size plants which have begun to blossom. You can stick these right in the ground or in pots and expect fresh peppers in about 2 weeks, assuming the bees aren't surprised there is something to pollinate. I had an orange pepper by the 3rd week of June.

Several more small peppers formed on the plants.

But they never got very big. I couldn't understand why. Then, while watering at the end of July, it hit me. Peppers love sunshine. You can see from the above photos, how the sunflowers shaded the pepper plants. I also seemed to have some issues with yard scamps making off with the small fruits, but, given their golfball size, I wasn't that upset. I got three whole peppers out of last year's crop.

So, this year, the sunflowers are going to the front of the house. This box is solely for peppers. I want to get poppies. I adore the look of poppies, and put them on the other side of the downspout. It would take a couple years for them to establish, but they would fill in that side so it doesn't look so bare. Or, I've contemplated getting a second raised bed. I don't know if poppies do well in raised beds. Something to read up on, for sure.

You spend years gardening and think, "I got this" and then, well, you don't quite have it. Learning as we go. That's the best part; that and fresh peppers.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Denizens

Growing up on a farm, surrounded by plants and animals, can spoil you to the wonders of what a yard could hold. When we first moved into this house, I admit to trying to tame nature to be something it wasn't. Over the years, I've gone from seeing it as something of an adversary to a friend. I realized if I wanted to grow organic, I couldn't use synthetic pesticides or herbicides. If I wanted butterflies, and I remember clouds of them in the garden on the farm, I was going to have to call city hall and ask that spraying for mosquitoes occur sporadically, rather than every week. The pesticide used to kill mosquitoes was killing butterfly larva. A golf club yard isn't necessarily the most diverse and can be a desert for birds.

It's taken awhile and I still have some things in the basement, like Round Up, which I use on tree stumps and to control the spread of Canadian thistle. I'm not feeding thistle seed to finches in my yard. Sorry birds, but you're messy and I want to be able to walk barefoot through the yard without stepping on those things. Gad that hurts. There are other foods I can put out which will be good and then I'm not wandering around with Round Up worried about the repercussions of spraying whole sections of yard for thistle.

It takes awhile for the wild life to figure out what you're doing and to return. Squirrels, no. Raccoons, no. Opossums, no. Put some stale peanuts in the ground feeder on the deck and the next morning, well...

Such a mess. Fortunately, I could just sweep the shells off into the lawn but as much as it's a hoot to watch the squirrels take a couple of peanuts off into the back of the yard, it's not worth the morning mess. I like feeding peanuts but I make a pile on the tree stump where the raccoons and opossums can feast and not tip things over.

One creature I had not seen in any form in years was this.

It's a dragonfly. The body was irridescent green. The wings were black with hints of blue. It's extremely hard to sneak up on a dragonfly to take a photo, but it flitted around the back for a good hour, alighting on various branches.

I also had hummingbirds. I have to post those photos, as I work through all the photos I took last year which never got blogged. What I hope is getting the birdbath in the front fixed so it retains water and redoing where the birdbath is on the deck will encourage more dragonflies and hummingbirds and just wildlife in general to hang around the yard. I should look into suet posts and probably hummingbird feeders, too, but one step at a time.

Sometimes, when I'm watching squirrel acrobatics to get into the north feeder, I think I should have done this years ago; kept it up when I had one feeder. One feeder got to be a chore. But you make choices about what you can do and I can do this now. It gives me immense pleasure.

Now is when it will be done, then.

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

Garden Planning

The days are getting longer. After what seemed like a full two solid weeks of gray skies, there have been brilliantly blue sunny skies. Even though I start to get seed and plant catalogues after Thanksgiving, I simply pile them on the ottoman and don't really start looking at them until now. It's kind of useless to plan when I haven't the cash to make any purchases.

Over the weekend, I sorted through the stack, recycling over 75% of them. It's time to start thinking of what I want this year. I reconfigured where the flowers were on the deck last year.

Usually, this corner is flowers. I had zinnias in a pot to the left, as you're sitting, of the chair. I bought that mesh table because Pilchard likes to sit on the ottoman to the right of the chair where the ground feeder rests. That didn't leave a spot for me to put my book, my tea, my cross-stitch projects. So another table was in order. I wanted to sit and watch the squirrels to the left when they feed on the tree stump.

Mainly, changing where I sat was a function of sunlight. It's at my right side and back, instead of my left side and front. So that left the south side of the deck free for the organization of plants.

By the time I got the plants outside, due to chilly weather, they'd spent a couple of weeks in a box and in the sink getting watered.

They were leggy and a bit awkward. I wound up losing three of them. But that taught me when I order this year, delivery can't be until May 1st. April weather is just too dicey and I need to be able to put these out within a week of arrival. 

The rest recovered nicely. 

The wave petunias, grown to cascade over the side of a pot, lasted until early September. I have to quit ordering primrose. As pretty as they are, they do not blossom for me and don't do well in pots on my deck. They are akin to pansies in that they don't like hot weather.

I don't like the strawberries I ordered last year, but I can't remember what the name of the ones were I ordered the year before. Maybe I should forego strawberries as the squirrels get to them before me. The geraniums were a bit leggy when I put them outside, but a trimming back made them nice and bushy.

This was a nice arrangement. The birdbath, however, was not used nearly as much as it had been in previous years. I don't think creatures felt safe. One of the issues is that the gutter is bent to the south of the door and when it rains heavily, water cascades onto the deck and anything below it. I'd move flowers to that section of the deck, but they would be drenched and probably destroyed by rain. I have a problem, as it is, with squirrels digging in my plants.

I think I need to move the birdbath closer to the deck steps this year. I also have to put the pot on the railing up onto something to allow air to circulate under the pot. I don't have enough of those plastic things I use under deck pots. I have had them for years and don't know if I can find anything like that anymore.

The moonflower, datura, which goes in the pot by the steps, didn't do as well as in the past. The alyssum did wonderfully, but the moonflower just didn't grow very big. I missed the giant trumpet blossoms and the intoxicating fragrance. The area around this pot has been cleared, but this year, landscape fabric and mulch is going down in this location. It's near the air conditioning unit and that area is going to be cleared so the unit is free of weeds for air circulation.

So the temperatures are going to be in the mid to upper 40's this next week. The back yard is a swamp. I'm itching for spring to get here and for flowers and plants to brighten the yard again.

Beverage:  Assam tea

Deb

How to Buy Plants

Seed catalogues flooded my mailbox at the beginning of the month. There is one, from a company in Maine, which comes in the mass of mail right after Thanksgiving. I have never ordered from them and, because it comes so early, I'm not inclined to consider what I might be planting a full 6 months in the future. I have my favorite companies; Jung Seed, Park Seed and Select Seeds. I received a new catalogue this year, something from a nursery which specializes in prairie plants, which looks very intriguing. Other than these four, everything else has been thumbed through and discarded. You find companies you like and you stick with them.

The same goes for nurseries. I go to Planter's Palette. I've been going here since the place opened and have watched them grow, specialize, diversify. I know, if I have an issue, I can go to them for advice. They told me what I needed to put in the raised bed to get good plants. The guy I spoke with also said, "Don't buy our top soil. It's overpriced. Go to Wal*Mart and get some of theirs. But, you'll need to amend that with our mushroom compost; one bag of compost to one bag of top soil. Next year, mix into the box more compost. The year after that, add top soil. Keep doing this and anything you plant in the box will thrive." I appreciate that kind of honesty. I did that and I think it's one reason the sunflowers in the box were gorgeous.

I want to make the north side of the house, now that all the trash stuff has been removed, a bit more exciting. It's just the bare wall, foundation and the two pine trees which had their dead branches removed with the clearing of the brush. I thought adding a ground cover and filling the area with ferns and hostas would be a cool idea. Unfortunately, the cost of ferns and hostas means this has to be a long term project, but I could start with a couple.

Well, what to start with. Planter's has an abundance, almost mind boggling, number of types of ferns and hostas. Big, little, with color, straight green, you name it. I was prepared to spend an hour wandering around the tables, looking at the varieties, reading about them, pondering, looking at what I was going to buy and deciding how much I could afford. It took me 15 minutes.

This hosta is called "Mouse Ears". You can see it, right? Here's the fern.

It's called "Godzilla".

Yes, while I was prepared to do some research and ask questions, I picked a hosta and a fern solely because they had cool names.

The ground on the north side of the house is hard and compacted. I couldn't get the holes dug as deeply as I wanted to get these planted. I also bought some pachysandra for ground cover. I watered every other day and then we got some good soaking rains so I didn't check up on the plants for about a month. When I came around the side of the house, they had been eaten down to an inch above the soil line. In October, however, the fern and the hosta had put out new bracts, which was encouraging.

Over the weekend, when I rehung the bird feeder, they were nowhere to be seen, but I think they die back. My neighbor to the south has several large cinnamon ferns and those die away completely with the first hard frost. The pachysandra was still there.

I did think that perhaps I need a raised bed on that side of the house. The creeping Charlie has taken over where I had scattered grass seed. I probably need to cover the ground with landscape fabric and let the sun's heat kill the grass and weeds under it. It's an old method of killing weeds in the soil. If I cover the creeping Charlie, that should, in theory, kill that patch and I could start anew with grass. I really wanted to put poppies on the north side of the downspout. I forgot to buy them last year. I love the look of poppies and used to have a couple plants in the front.

There will be some landscaping changes this year. I'm not retiring and moving away, yet, so I want the lawn to look better than it has in years. I was quite neglectful.

Beverage:  English Breakfast Tea

Deb

Supposedly For Butterflies

In a previous post, a talked about the planter box I bought last March. I have a few photos taken over the summer to show how it worked with the peppers and sunflowers I planted in it. In this post, I'm going to discuss an accouterment to the box which I had hopes for. 

It could be argued that I'm not going to be in this house that much longer so why am I making some changes. Well, I want the house to be useful to me as long as I live here. I'm tired of coming home and not being happy with how things look; vis-a-vis; the dead ash and the trash on the north side. I need to not spend my evenings and weekends in front of the computer. I need to be outside and enjoying the sun and breeze. That means I need to look at what gives me pleasure. The planting box certainly did. I like the idea of fresh off-the-plant peppers. And I want to be a part of keeping monarch butterflies alive. 

Toward that end, I found, in one of the myriad of garden catalogues I get, these swaying metal stylized poppies. The premise of these is that the cupped flower will hold just enough water for butterflies to land and drink. They need a water source as well as a bird does. Having water in your garden, in addition to attractive plants, means more butterflies. 

They came in four colors. I chose orange red because, eventually, I want to plant poppies on the opposite side of the downspout where the box sits. When the box came, I was more than a little nonplussed. These were not what I expected at all. It was interesting that they are made in India. You get a long box with flowers in a plastic bag. 

You can see the box in the background. These flowers are anodized and they just sit on the end of the long metal stake which is inserted in the ground. In an enclosed space, where there isn't much wind, this might be fine, but the product description clearly stated these were for garden use. All it would take would be a heavy rain and I'd be out picking up the flowers off the ground. No mention in any product description that this was a two piece item. 

Well, although I was very disappointed, I realized I could "fix" these. I grabbed the bottle of super glue. I put a couple drops of glue in the stem where the stake is inserted, smeared more glue on the stake and inserted the stake into the stem. 

I left the flowers sit for 48 hours, to give the glue time to set and cure. Then I took them outside and inserted them in the planter box, which, you see has been planted with sunflowers at the yellow markers, and three peppers; yellow and two orange varieties. 

It looks cool. If you put them as a cluster, they bang together to make a "light metallic sound", the description said. Um...no. I wanted them as a decoration around the box edges and then as a receptacle for water for butterflies. I knew they wouldn't attract birds. The orange is supposedly a wavelength butterflies see.

Was it successful? Not really. I never saw a butterfly land on a flower. We had some very heavy rains throughout the summer and I am convinced if I had not glued the flower to the stake, I'd have lost some of them. They did fill nicely with rain or when I watered the peppers with the hose. But as a means of providing water to butterflies, I don't think this works. It's also possible that the sunflowers did for that what they did for the peppers, block out access. I won't be putting sunflowers in this box this year. It's strictly for peppers. We'll see if that changes use.

I wouldn't recommend these for garden use simply because the flower just rests on the stake. That isn't, for me, enough of a seal to prevent the flowers from falling off, particularly in midwest thunderstorms.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

A Hearty Recommendation

With the clearing of the trash trees off the north and northwest sides of the house, I had a wide open section of yard to do something with. The first thing was to get top soil and mushroom compost and even out the land.

There were rather large holes under the downspout, where overgrown bushes were removed. I decided I wanted a raised bed here; something small-ish which would handle peppers and fit in this space. I searched all sorts of places which came up when Googling "raised beds". That can be something of a rabbit hole. Would you like the Cadillac of raised beds, lacking only a gardener to tend it for you, or would you like something which looks like two squirrels slapped it together with help from a chipmunk? And pieces; lots and lots of pieces. If you are the handy sort, you probably could design your bed and just buy pieces. Me? Not so much. I needed a kit. I just wanted something I could assemble and move into place, which would fit in the spot by the downspout. Those tiger lilies, with the trash gone, will just go everywhere.

I found a bed at Home Depot. The bed is by New Tech Wood. The current price is not what I paid for it back in mid-March. I settled on this bed and then watched sales and coupons. I think I spent $50 for it and I feel that's a very good price.

Shall we talk about how it comes?

Is this a box or is this a box? I came home in late April to see this sitting on the front porch. It was a bit heavy to pull inside, but there's my raised bed. I put it together the weekend after it arrived. 

I dragged it out onto the deck and opened the box. 

Everything is contained and nicely packed for shipping. Nothing was loose. I dumped it out. 

My heart sank. Man, this is a lot of stuff. How was I going to put it together. There also were not printed instructions. There was a parts list, but nothing else. 

One of the benefits of technology is having video at your fingertips. A selling point of this bed was the video on the product description page. I watched that and felt I could assemble this without need of many tools and it would be light-weight enough I could put it together on the deck and move it to the spot in the yard where I wanted it. I have an iPad. I can watch that video, stop it, assemble and move on. 

My deck railing is just a bit smaller than the iPad, but it was fantastic to be able to watch and find the parts and move on. That's the bottom of the bed. Here's a close up.

I guess you'd call this "modular". The bottom pieces snap together and everything snaps onto or into everything else. 

When the bottom pieces are snapped together, you add the sides. You can see the sides have a distinctive shape to them. The walls will slide into the grooves on each side so you need to make sure you put the indentation the right way, not that I would have knowledge of putting them on wrong. (Oh look! A Squirrel.) 

Here you can see one of the sides in place. The plastic sheet goes over the bottom. It acts like landscape fabric in that it lets water drain out while keeping dirt in and weeds out. It just lies on top of the base.

The walls are held in place by pegs. 

One of the tools you need is a rubber mallet. This was the part which was the most frustrating. You need to line up holes in the wall with holes in the end posts, insert a peg and pound in the peg. I tried to do this while the bed was on the deck railing but until the sides are anchored, the bed would fall apart. 

You can see on the far right corner, one of the peg holes. It can be really tough for me to a) get down on the ground and then b) get up once I'm down there. Some comedian did a visual joke about that. He fell to the ground and a friend offered to help him get up. His response, "Wait. Wait. I'm seeing what else I can do now that I'm down here." There are days when that's exactly how I feel. I wound up sitting down and pounding the pegs into the holes. Here is the bed with the sides on. 

The last things to attach are the end caps. They needed a light tap with the hammer to snap into place. 

Once completed, it's rather light-weight and very sturdy. It was easy to carry it to the location where it's going to go. Here's the finished and filled product. 

I'm very pleased with it. I'll be posting photos of what I planted in the box. The cats weren't interested in the cardboard box, surprisingly. I think it might have been too big. I wound up cutting it into pieces and recycling it. I will be getting another this coming March and putting it on the other side of the downspout. This would be a great raised bed for small spaces, including decks.

Beverage:  Water

Deb