Garden cleanup interrupted by rude arrival of winter

Fall this year seemed to come and go quickly and I never really was able to take advantage of nice weather to clean up the garden the way I wanted. A mid-November morning attempt at pulling out the dead plants didn’t go exactly as planned; I learned the hard way that the saying “lift with your legs not with your back” also applies to pulling out stubborn tomato plants. Suffice it to say that getting stuck in the bent-over position isn’t fun. But, after a little rest, the back feels better.

Giant sunflowers and a plethora of cosmos and weeds

While I love the giant sunflowers that tower over the east end of my garden, I’ve yet to see an actual sunflower head on them yet. No yellow petals or deep brown centers. Of course, given their size, it’s quite possible that I just can’t see that high, and I hope that’s the case. Or that, just like everything else this growing season, they’re a bit behind.

Raspberries late this year

(Above photo: Before I weeded, some weeds were taller than the raspberries.)

Finally got the raspberry patch weeded, the last of the “big” weeding jobs I had left to complete. You can tell by the before and after photos just how big the weeds were! Now if only the berries would ripen.

The hardest 8 hours of summer

Well, after eight hours over four days, the garden is weed-free at last. Or as weed-free as it probably will be this summer. I can’t remember the last time that my body ached so much!

Fresh veggies make for a happy table this week

The onions are a lot smaller than last year’s crop.

Carrots and potatoes picked today.

I found these volunteer tomatoes beneath a bunch of weeds.

Cassie came by the garden just in time to eat a few raspberries.

I was able to spend a little time in the garden this afternoon before the rain set in. Well, it wasn’t really rain – more like heavy sprinkles – but enough to keep me inside. It was a strange kind of day in the weather department. Off in the distance, it thundered and there was lightning, but not only did we not get any heavy rain at our house, the sun was shining most of the time. Pretty, puffy light clouds juxtaposed with a dark sky and heavy gray clouds. Like I said, strange.

July 22: The philosopy of weeding – or not

Lettuce tastes much better sans grass.

My first dill pickles!

Just.

Because.

They’re.

Pretty.

Looking east.

Looking west.

Spent about an hour and a half in the garden this morning, mostly weeding the lettuce, onions, carrots and flowers that ring the garden. I decided to start early (about 7 a.m.) because of the high humidity, but it didn’t matter all that much. It didn’t take long before I was drenched in sweat and so hot that my glasses kept steaming up on me.

I had a two-fold reason for weeding, the first being that I wanted to cut the lettuce and didn’t want to have to pick out the grass when I washed it later.

July 4: Why is my pumpkin trying to get out of my garden?

Spent two hours in the garden this morning (in 90-degree heat, no less), determined to finish the weeding. Got it all done, plus picked a few peas and the first raspberries of the summer. They were a great addition to my lunch of a BLT with lettuce from my garden and the tomato from the local farmers’ market.

My favorite photo of the day is of my lone pumpkin plant, which sorely looks like it wants out of the garden. It came up near where I had planted pumpkins last year, although it’s much closer to the fence than I ever would have planted it and actually is growing into the raspberry patch.

Since it doesn’t really have anywhere else to go, the pumpkin vines are climbing up over the fence and through it. I like how it looks although I’ll have to keep a close eye on it.

At a previous garden, I didn’t train the vines at all, nor did I watch them. Before I knew it, a pumpkin was growing on the neighbor’s side of the fence about 3 feet off the ground! My neighbor finally had to break it off because it had grown so big I was afraid it was going to fall and splatter all over the place!

July 3: Baby it’s hot outside

Oh man, it’s hot out. It’s 8:30 p.m. and still 88 degrees. That, combined with a dew point of about 70 has combined to make it miserable. It appears the dog days of summer are here – and it’s only July 3.

I waited until the sun went down a bit to get some weeding time in. Mostly one-handed weeding, because I didn’t want to reopen Monday night’s cut to fingers on my right hand. I spent about only about a half hour pulling weeds around the tomatoes before I was drenched in sweat.

Looking west (after tomatoes were weeded):

July 2: Another obstacle to weeding? How about a sliced finger?

So, weeding has to be put off another day. I was trying to wash the dishes quickly so I could get some weeding in before it started raining (yes it actually LOOKS like rain!). Too quickly it seems because I sliced my finger pretty good. Actually two of them, but it was the middle finger that got it worse. Of course, the cut is right where you bend the finger and with the crease, so it wouldn’t stop bleeding. Freaked Cassie out for a minute, then she found some gauze and masking tape and fixed it up good!

However, I decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to go out and start chopping away at the weeds tonight. Good thing I got my daily photos this morning before work.

Growing, growing, growing — weeds they are a growing

Finally, some much needed rain.

More than an inch in the past 24 hours — more than we’ve seen in the past month and a half. Still several inches behind for the month, but we’ll take what we can get these days.

The booyah that is my garden now includes a variety of bountiful weeds in addition to the fast-growing veggies. I was hoping to attack them tonight, but the mud, not to mention intermittent showers, is preventing that. Not that pulling weeds is my favorite thing to do, but they’re really starting to get away from me.