All in the Ground


So it is the end of the three day Memorial Day weekend, and I have barely sat down since Friday.

In fact, the frenzy began last week when the long awaited (ordered in January) pollinator garden from Prairie Moon Nurseries arrived. Long have we wanted to put in a garden of native flowers and plants. Finally pulled the trigger last winter.

The thing is, I had not prepared the bed where we wanted to put these between the apple trees. The wind was howling. It was cold. It was threatening rain. I spent a LOT of time ripping up creeping Charlie and dandelions. Wednesday, the plants went in. In the same cold wind. 


The good news is that the weather changed Saturday. I was able to deal with a project that has sat there taunting me for a long time. 

The situation was this: the patio outside my office window was covered with piles of wood chips from splitting wood all winter long. While this stuff makes excellent mulch (see above - no weird colors or dyes, just plain, natural wood) there was no place to put it.

We are getting the collapsing deck, which we have nursed through five summers, removed in June. So, unfortunately, the beds that I'd dropped in next to it have to go. I reused the materials to enclose the dogwood shrubbery off the end of the patio, and then filled the box with those woodchips (see the picture at the very top). Done. There's still a big pile of river rock from under the deck that I need to wash and move down to enclose the raspberry beds, but that will have to wait.

The peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes are in. We invested a small fortune in tomato cages this year. I think this will be an improvement over tying the tomatoes to bamboo stakes until they are so overweight that they break. 

Tomatoes


Peppers & Eggplants

More peppers and eggplants

Beds off of the collapsing deck that are being cannibalized for parts

I have acquired a small helper from next door who has a lot of questions. It's a lot of fun, explaining about bees and answering a lot of "what are you doing?" Nice kid. 

I also dumped a bunch of wildflower mix into otherwise unused pots. I have high hopes for this.

But I'd like to have a word with whoever it was that suggested that gardening is a lot of "gentle stretching." This is a load of fetid dingo's kidneys. It is a TON of backbreaking work. Lots of bending and lifting which has left me, finally, utterly outworn. It will be a relief to do the desk job tomorrow. Physically undemanding.

The weather has turned though. It is summer. 80+ degrees today, and a week of 80's ahead. Everything is that bright green you get when summer is full of promise. No rain predicted, though, which is troubling. 

Signing off.






 



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