It was a beautiful weekend but not enough time to get everything done I needed to. But it's OK, it still felt productive.
The first thing I did was edge around the barn and shed and the fruit trees again, so that the mowing would clean up the edging residue, ha. Then it was time to mow. I got the yard mowed, well, I guess if you can call 3.4 acres "the yard", ha. It was right in line with the usual time of mowing, a little over an hour and a half.
It's my Zen Time so I'm OK with it. It was not TOO hot either, though it did peak at about 80 degrees and was getting to be a bit humid by the end of the day. The next project was cleaning up the garden.
With our rainy weekends for most of February and March and then me building the raised beds for the citrus, getting them set up, filling with soil and compost and then planting and mulching, my plans for a Spring garden got delayed.
And delayed...
And this was the end result. The two at the back end are the garlic beds, they are fine (more on that in a bit) but you can see the others were out of control. I knew they were getting out of control but it was a project for another day. Saturday was that day, ha.
And a couple hours work, I was able to consider it "mission mostly accomplished". The beds were completely cleared out. That was the main goal. I pulled some random weeds around the beds themselves and a few coming up through the seems in the landscape cloth. But I missed a few because I just ran out of energy.
Going to skip a Spring garden this year which is fine, gives me time to do some other stuff (like getting the fruit trees all finished). We might try a quickie Summer garden with some herbs and heat loving veggies, but I'll need to figure that out, what grows best, went to plant, etc.
Here is one of the garlic beds. They look great and are right on schedule. At least we hoped. And so of course, since I am one of those who always wants to open a present early, that extends to my gardening. I pulled one to see what was going on "underground"...
...and here is, that "early present", ha.
It looks great!
The heads (assuming they are all like this one) are just about the right size. Another month of growing before pulling out of the ground and they should be perfect. We can't wait to have fresh homegrown garlic again and hopefully twice as much as last time since we planted two beds full this year.
I didn't get to the "wheat harvest" (the straw mulch that sprouted, ha) but this coming weekend is the plan for that. I'm hoping I can skip mowing again (depends on the weather this week) and then I can focus all the time on cleaning them out. I'll need to pull all this and then add soil if needed and of course mulch with WOOD mulch instead of straw, ha.
Hope you had a great weekend!
Looks and sounds like you had a very profitable weekend and hopefully you had time to relax in the evening. Being out in all that fresh air really makes a person to have an appetite and makes one sleep good a well; it does me anyway.
ReplyDeleteGarlic looks Great as well as your mowed yard.
Looks like you may want to lay another covering of weed fabric over your existing fabric to keep them weeds from coming through.
I slept well this weekend, ha. I think you are right, I need to patch up the weed fabric. I really hate just having the fabric down and no gravel or mulch but I'm just so torn as to what to do. I'm thinking that it will be best when we're out there full time and I can have a daily weed watch instead of once a week (or every couple if rain).
DeleteThe garden beds look great. Lots of hard work went into those.
ReplyDeleteI downloaded your mowing app. I try to mow my lawn in a different direction every time and was hoping this app could help me remember which way I went last time. It is very confused, it has me mowing right through the house, LOL! Not sure if one of my settings is off or what but the GPS is ON so not sure whats up with it. I'll keep looking at it.
Thank you! They are ongoing work for sure, ha.
DeleteYou know they changed that feature on the app. A couple of seasons ago it was a multicolor (different shades of green and yellow) to show the different paths. Then it went to this sort of all one line thing. It works for how I use it but I played around with it to see if it would do what you need and I'm not sure. I think it needs to be more of something you can zoom down to a closer level so you can see the paths and with directions (maybe little arrows would help?). I'm not sure if there is something like that. I just used this because it worked so seamlessly with my JD model and keeping track of maintenance things for my particular model. I'll see if I can find something else that might work for what you need.
Oh dear look at all the nutrient being stolen from the poor tree, will need a good feed when the wheat weeds are gone.
ReplyDeleteAt least 2nd family's chickens will get some green pick and make lovely eggs.
You know I was wondering about that. Need to see what nutrients wheat takes from the ground and make sure I put that back. Great idea for the chickens, we will totally do that and give them them. Thanks for the suggestion!
Deletenice garlic! i have planted all of my herbs and can't wait to have fresh herbs again. i never started seeds this year so my gardens are going to be a bit different. i'll buy all of my plants from the amish.
ReplyDeleteFresh herbs are THE BEST. And our basil goes crazy here! Love it. Seedlings/plants from the Amish would be be awesome. Be sure to post pics!!
DeleteLooks fantastic! I do herbs every year and I would love to add garlic!!! Thanks for the inspiration! Annster's Domain
ReplyDeleteThis is our third year with garlic. First year was hit and miss. Last year was great and so we just replicated that this year (same variety, same seller, etc) and then we expanded to a second raised bed. We'll have a nice haul of garlic for sure.
DeleteYour garlic looks wonderful. You have definitely found the right way to grow it.
ReplyDeleteThat was a lot of work cleaning the garden but it looks so nice now. I think you could still grow some okra - it likes hot weather. Soak the seeds overnight before planting- it speeds up germination.
Make sure you get the wheat before it goes to seed and spreads it all over your yard! My garlic is growing, and I am tempted to pull one to see what is going on down there in the dirt.
ReplyDelete