Catching Up with Photos

So, I took some photos before the freeze to catch up on what the yard has been doing all summer. Here's the stepping stones down the center of my vegetable garden.

Next we have a video of popping balsam seed pods (yes, the plants have nice flowers, but the fall-popping of seeds is the real reason we keep growing them)

We added bricks to our side path this summer. People were avoiding walking on it, I guess thinking it was a flower bed before. Now it looks official, and the purplish/gray bricks have determined a color scheme, with red shiso and purple alyssum. The bricks were a gift from my husband while I was gone visiting my folks down south. My husband knows the way to my heart is through my garden!

I also grew goya/nigaauori/bitter cucumber this year from the seeds an Okinawan neighbor/friend gave me. We didn't eat it, I just grew it for the novelty. It didn't really get big enough to eat. Okay, I feel guilty, next year I'll eat one (it's the kind of food that you eat because you know it's good for you, not because you crave it).

That's all for the moment! Be back later...

Tiller or Pitchfork?

I love my pitchfork.

Seriously, I can loosen up dirt around plants and pull out just the weeds, instead of shoveling out the good stuff as well. I can double spade a garden. I could aerate too, I suppose, if I had a whole lot of time on my hands and Littlest wasn't trying to stand under my next steps...

Tillers are Amazing!

I was able to borrow a tiller from a neighbor friend (thank you, thank you!), and think tillers are amazing! Granted, they don't go as deep as shovel and pitchfork, but they are FAST!! I've buried some sod and cardboard from last years' sod killing, covered it, and made mounds for planting. It'll be a few years before it's really established as a fully full flower bed (annuals this year, perennials as the serendipity of sales and clippings allow)...if I do annuals first, and the grass comes back, I can hack at it again without having to negotiate around perennials...hmmm. Okay, so it snowed a couple of days ago, so no pressure on planting! Next project is fixing all the broken sprinklers, anyway...

Things I've done rather than things left to do...

I've decided that instead of thinking about all those things I still want to do (and having anxiety about not getting things done), I'm going to post what I've done, and when I feel anxious, I'll go back and look at my previous posts and enjoy the fruits of my labors. Because there will always, always, be more things I could do, if I had the time...

Sprinklers

I've put in permanent sprinklers in my vegetable garden, my neighbors are planting...the clock is ticking!