Fall cleanup

I have slowly been cleaning up my gardens for fall; after being promoted at work late in the summer it feels like I have no time to work outside.  Between my two jobs I go to work in the dark and come home in the dark, and it has been months since I've had an entire day off.  I've had to get a little creative when it comes to getting things done in my garden.

Things are getting done outside, but not nearly as quickly as I'd like.  The longer the weather holds out before winter gets here, the better it will be.

Today I went out and raked leaves from under the maple trees, and used them to mulch my herb bed, which is full of sprouting garlic.  We had enough cardboard saved to lay between the rows and smother the weeds, and I was able to pile a good 18+ inches of leaves on top of the cardboard.  The whole garden looks fluffy!

I would like to hem in that particular garden with a wattle fence...we'll see if I can come with the materials and time.

My next yard project is to paper and mulch the empty flower garden.  I ran out of both cardboard and leaves today, but will be running errands tonight close to my cardboard supply.  The crabapple by the barn and the oak tree out front still have to drop their leaves...they should be enough to mulch the flowerbed.

After that, the main garden!

Early Summer 2015

Welcome to a new year and a new garden season!  I have a few confessions to make...

Since my last post, I have probably written a dozen or more posts that just never got posted...for no particular reason.  I can say that I have been busy (I had two days off the entire month of February, for example), I have been bored, I felt conceited after finishing what I wanted to write about...the list goes on and on.  I think it boils down to I have a tendency to not follow through with anything, because I am already thinking of the next few things.  Right now I am making the commitment to myself and to you, the rare dear reader, to keep up with my blog.  My goal right now is a post a week, hopefully two.

My next confession....is that my garden looks no better this year than last year.  Because of a crazy work schedule, I started my seedlings very late...and managed to get my garden tilled on time.  After waiting patiently for the last spring frost, I plunked my little darlings in the ground.  Over the next three weeks, we had no less than six more frosts, and hard ones at that.  It was the last of these, one night where the temp dropped down to ten degrees below the forecasted temperature  that nipped all my seedlings in the bud.

Not to be deterred....I bought plants.  Gophers ate them, my barn cats dug them up...you name it.  It has rained every two days for the past three weeks...you could bale the grass in my yard right now!

I am determined to wrestle at least something from my garden this year...we will have to see what turns out to be!