What Did You Do In The Garden?

[Nyboy]

Trees I plant in fall do much better then spring planted. The heat of summer is hard on a tree without full root system.

 

[flowerbug]

and if the tree can handle being pruned it helps to cut some of the top back so that the roots are not overwhelmed by the demand of the top.

 

[flowerbug]

today was a beautiful fall day. mid-40s, a little sun and some breeze.

i finally managed to get out and put up a few more gardens for winter. i was hoping to finish all three, but as it goes around here plans can often be waylaid by complications.

the first garden i poked the shovel into i managed to hit some buried carpeting and landscape fabric. i knew it was down there somewhere, but not having done any of the work in that garden area before i really didn't know where exactly. it used to be covered and perennials. i like some here or there but i'm getting to the stage where if i have to weed something it would be nice to get food or at least some green manure/cover crops from the space. most of it was just covered and had wood chips. old wood chips that were all scraped up for the strawberry patch redo and since i'd much rather have growing stuff there than woodchips and such... well next year this gives me more space for veggies (ahem beans )... ok, so i should now wander back on topic, which i'm not really sure ... oh, yes...

i'm not sure i got it all out of there, but at least now things should actually be able to grow better there having more than four inches of questionable garden soil. when getting the carpeting and fabric out of there i found some of the previous mulch under there which was happily mixed in with the wood ashes i was adding and along with the garden debris i was burying. a hour or less project took up almost two hours. so my energy was pooped and i could only coax myself to get the other garden done inside the fenced area...

the other garden was cake in comparison. well anytime i don't have to jump up into the air to get the shovel in the ground is a bonus day to me... just pulling up pepper and bean plants and scraping them all into a few holes. we always joke that they are where we bury the bodies... once in a while i do bury road kill, but no people.

so at least now everything in the fenced garden is taken care of other than burying leaves it is ready for winter. oh, well, yeah, i could trim back the apple saplings again. if i remember it will be a good task when i can't do something else.

the last garden i have to clean up has no surprises and should take me an hour or two. next season it gets added on (less grass yay!).

of course, there's always more to do... i usually keep going up until the ground freezes. simply because i need exercise and it feels good to move, even if i'm a bit sore later.

i've been taking it easy the past few weeks. we had plenty of rain, the roof was being fixed, family things, a short trip up north, reading some books. mainly though trying to give my shoulder a break before i got back to the last cleanups needed out there when the ground finally got dry enough.

rain forecast for tomorrow, supposed to be nice Thursday. we'll see... i don't trust anything the weather forecast says until i see it hitting the ground.

ok, enough rambles here... cheers...

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

We had some sun and in the 40s. I cleaned the hutch and gave some new straw. I put the manure on the garden and spread it out and the old bedding on the compost bin. I took a couple of barrels of old rabbit manure to the garden and spread that. I raked leaves and have piles all over and took some to the garden and spread them out.

 

[digitS']

i need exercise and it feels good to move,

Well, that is the way I think about it but I'm still in "recovery." I do a lot of that digging and burying on a normal year. Not this time. If I'm not supposed to carry anything heavier than a gallon of milk, I'm sure that they don't mean wet dirt on the end of a shovel.

I've been on 30 minute walks, lately -- 2 on Monday! Today it was both up and down hill .

The hip, or is it the back, is sore. It's from sitting too much. At least, that is the way I'm gonna think about it until it goes away with some gentle exercise ... or, until some healthcare professional tells me different ...

I raked leaves and have piles all over and took some to the garden

DW said this afternoon that she was going out to pull the frost-killed pepper plants out of the greenhouse. I said, "Don't do that and just pile them in the yard!" She says, "I already have a hole for them in the garden."

Oh. Then, I see that she collected another wheelbarrow load of leaves from the lawn. It's the 3rd raking but they must have bothered her, laying around out there. I hope she didn't cram those in a little hole! Oh well, if'n I can't do it myself, I'd better just keep my mouth shut and resist mansplaining about what she could be up to ...

Steve

 

[digitS']

Here's another one ... I'll take the first part of it:

Shall I give you my recipe for happiness? I find everything useful and nothing indispensable. I find everything wonderful and nothing miraculous. I reverence the body. I avoid first causes like the plague. ~ Norman Douglas

 

[flowerbug]

the spine needs movement.

so far i dig only small parts of most gardens. i'm not really in this to do more work than is needed. worms dig better than i.

i bury other people's leaves. they are nice enough to bag them and bring them to me in exchange for some fresh garden goodies, jam, bread or something canned.

one year they brought me leaves from a neighbor who said that they were careful in picking out the junk, but i found all sorts of stuff in there including an old headlight from a motorcycle, a clock, a butter knife and all sorts of other things i couldn't even remember to list here. i called up my friends and told them i could no longer take things from them because i don't have the time to pick trash from my gardens. after some further conversations we decided to keep going on as before but they would not bring me stuff from someone else again.

i also had a very bad batch of compost hauled in once and that was a mistake i will never make again. i'm still picking pieces of glass, plastic, metal, etc. out of a garden. i should never have used it. who knows what else was in there?

but we keep on, keeping on. i hope i can garden by crawling because i really don't mind being that close to the dirt. i figure at the end they can just roll me over into a hole and let the worms tickle me. it is their due. i won't mind and would giggle the hole time.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I dug some compost out of the bin and put on the garden and moved old straw and leaves and piled it up and I am going to put it in the bin when I get the finished compost out and rebuild it for the winter with some old squash out of the garden, kale and collard plants, and some rabbit bedding.

 

[ninnymary]

I planted snow peas and the rats haven't gotten to them yet.

Mary

 

[Nyboy]

I cried my nephew had to cut down 2 of my favorite trees for new garage. Tri colored beech and a weeping purple leaf redbud I planted them about 10 years ago. I think the purple weeping redbud my favorite tree on property