Wicked Witch of the Wool

My adventures in knitting and my daily life on the farm.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

A Lot of Work, but a Lot to Show Too!

Hubby and I worked up quite a sweat this Memorial Day Weekend. My veggie garden had been laying idle in half-finished state since last summer. This year we (meaning I, especially) wanted to finish the fencing around it (to prevent certain members of the family , i.e. the goats from eating the crop), work some of our wonderful llama manure in the soil and then plant it full with green goodies.
Here you see the fencing complete (minus the gate) and my dear husband tilling the soil....



I planted sweet corn, cucumbers, onions, peppers, grapes, strawberries, sunflowers, rosemary, basil, marjoram, pole beans, wax beans, tomatoes, cabbage, and probably lots more that I just can't remember off the top of my head. I'm still waiting for my potato seeds to arrive, and I'm still looking for the lovage seeds that Maus gave me last year. The veggie garden is 24 feet by 24 feet, and I'm quickly running out of space to plant. I bought a 4 foot diameter water trough to place in the middle for a little water garden effect.

This is how it looked this morning....



I put up some planks on the right side to form a little wind break for my tender plants, and it turned out to be a very good idea. More on this later. We still need to add more rocks to the path, but it has become very tedious work. We have tons of this rock spread in our garden, but they are not all in one place, rather the dogs have spread them out over vast areas. I have to sit on a stool and pick up each individual rock by hand. Who wants to guess how many rocks it takes to cover the ground with at least a 3 inch layer?! I also need to add a circular bed around the water trough to add some flowery color to the garden. I got the plants today; Nasturtiums, Lady's Mantle and Tree Mallow. Now I need to go get the bricks to form the bed.
Here are some more pictures....







I'm going to hang a hammock in the middle of the back portion of the garden so that I can really enjoy the view.
Here is a close up of the water feature....



I also did some re-arranging on the deck. A table from the basement was brought upstairs and together with a rocking chair forms a perfect place for me to sit and knit. If you look closely you can see the beginning of a sock on the table, along with a good book, the required favorite beverage (diet pepsi) and my binoculars.



This morning I planted two beds next to the house with summer bulbs. I don't have pictures of that yet, since there is nothing really to show yet besides soggy dirt. Yes, soggy! I left for my physical therapy session in full sun and returned in a torrential downpour and hail. The streets were flooded, and so was my poor garden.
This is what the sky looked like....



Here is the deck, after most of the hail had already melted (note the broken leaves on the ground). I haven't yet had the heart to look at the ravage to my garden.



The storms are still raging. The barn has flooded, the horses are standing in mud up to their knees, and the goats are cranky. Speaking of goats, I leave you with one final picture taken this weekend of Annabelle and Trouble.....

3 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Looks like lots of fun! :)

I hope your plants fare well in this every-rainy-haily-day weather. I'm going to have to fertilize my tomatoes again tomorrow, as the hail does a number on them. :(

But we have baby peaches on our peach tree. Fingers crossed!

Tue May 29, 07:08:00 PM 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

and how----my dear---is your back, after all of that gardening?

Thu May 31, 11:59:00 AM 2007  
Blogger Ellen said...

Christy, yum peaches! I hope they'll mature well and not be too damaged by hail and high winds.

Lisa, the back is doing as expected. My new motto is "better life through chemistry" ;-)
I carried a 1,000 pounds of edge pavers yesterday 4 times, so I effectively carried 4,000 pounds. However, the work was well worth it. Pictures to follow soon.

Thu May 31, 06:19:00 PM 2007  

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