A Place for Muddy Garden Boots
Getting the garden in order for the growing season has to be done during the rainy and mushy parts of the year, what does this mean? It means you end up tracking all of that mud and muck into the front entrance or side entrance of your house. If you are one of the lucky ones to have a side part onto your house called a “mud-room”, you still have the issue of cleaning up that mud once your foot hits the floor, no matter what room it happens to step into. The best way to prevent a massive clean-up of mud is to create something to contain the shoes or boots that have the mud caked onto the bottom of the sole.
While reading an article in an old book (Circa: 1900) in the Special Collections section in the local library near my home, I read about the different types of spores and fungus found in mud. The fungus and spores that thrive in wet conditions that even can be mud or wet sand areas can travel into your home and if you have children or pets that walk on the floor or even crawl on the floor, it can make them sick.
To contain this mud from reaching the entire parts of your house is to remove your shoes right when you walk into your home or before you walk in your home. So why not make an area in your home where all shoes can be removed. Position a boot box near the entrance where you will be coming and out. A boot box consist of a plywood bottom and four 2×4 boards along the back and sides of the ply wood. You can cut the box to any size you want to fit as many or as little of the shoes you want it to hold and use metal corner clamps to hold everything in place along with screws to reinforce the sides. Placing newspaper in the bottom will help absorb any wetness that will linger and it will also make it easier for clean up as well.
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