My mystified question for the day: Why the heck does it all take so long??? Here's what I got done yesterday:
You can see: I got my gate open, and got a chunk of weeds cleaned out -- two wheelbarrows full. I take them to the tall weeds and woody area at the edge of my yard shouting, "Watch out, snakes! Here I come!" I stamp my feet, too. I've never encountered any snakes, so I guess it works. Anyway, you can see the edge of that raised bed, where I removed the planks -- see them stacked at the far left of the garden, alongside the grape vines? And I got some tall thistles pulled, too. But you can see that I have at least 4 times that much left to clear. It's nearly all ragweed, so not only are there the visible, pullable plants, but nests and nests and networks of little creeping, vining roots just an inch or two underground. What a mess!
And here's what I did today. This is the sum total of my veggie garden so far this year:
It's right at the end of that silly bed that I cleared partway yesterday! I used my "claw" cultivator to soften it up and pull out as many ragweed roots as I could, dug holes which I filled partway with my compost & manure mix, put in the plants that survived weeks of languishing on the back porch (well, I put some of the survivors in pots so that I can harvest conveniently and bring inside in the winter). You see one grape tomato plant (upper right), one basil (upper left), one healthy parsley (center bottom), and a little tiny bit of parsley that survived from a plant I thought was dead (top center). Except for the rhubarb, grapes, and raspberries that have somehow managed to survive, this is it. If I get more cleared, I may buy more tomatoes and plant some beans. Planting these will make tilling a little more difficult, when I get that far, but if I didn't get them in somewhere, I wouldn't have them -- and I've already killed so many!
And since I didn't really "suit up," I think I picked up a couple of chiggers while I was out there. But I don't have to worry about those seedlings anymore -- they will sink, swim, or be eaten by varmints, since I haven't finished the fence.
This should make you all feel so much better about your own gardens!
Ahhh progress! It's a good thing.
Peace!
Posted by: Barbara | June 01, 2010 at 07:52 PM