Just spent another bit of time pulling weeds, trimming trees and just trying to get a grip on things in the garden. Overwhelming is certainly one way of describing it! I took some more photos but I barely notice the progress myself…well, actually, I can see the progress in the photos! Woohoo 🙂
I primarily focused on the right side of the garden today, trying to trim down the grass and cut back the trees and roses so we can at least see what is what. There is a whole lot of grass back there which will need to come out, but at this point it’s a bit like hay because it’s grown so tall. So mostly I’m just cutting it down and will then collect it and start killing it off slowly where I know I won’t be wanting it anymore.
BEFORE
AFTER
It may not look like much but I was only out there an hour and only about half the time was spent here. But you can see the wall now which was not so easy in some parts before! Plus I can also see dirt again which is a big accomplishment.
In case you’re wondering about the rest of the garden, it still looks chaotic. We now have two beds which have been designated as weed piles…but we intend to pile everything up, let it die and compact a bit and will order a bio container in the coming weekends so we can dump everything in there. We would compost everything but there are tons of seeds from these weeds in here, not to mention a bunch of cuttings from the trees, rose bushes, etc., none of which break down very fast. So off it will be carted in a trash container. The issue will be getting it as close as possible to the garden so we don’t have to carry all this too far!
About half of what is on top of the mound behind the strawberry bed is weeds. That bed is the highest mound of all of them right now so it looks a bit worse than it is…but in truth, it’s still horrible. And our poor greenhouse – the roof is barely holding on now. But all that will be fixed up soon too! Ah, the to do list never ends!
I also realized we have a spot for one of the jostaberry bushes (assuming the evil caterpillars leave something of them behind – picked off more of those suckers today but massively less than the day before so the few sad leaves they still have will hopefully keep them going!) We removed a black current bush last year that wasn’t producing so well anymore and had very yucky fruit. So one of them will replace it. The other, we’ll have to devise a good spot for…but next year they will also hopefully start producing fruit! Then along with the red current and gooseberry bushes, we’ll have quite a harvest of berries…oh and the strawberries and raspberries too of course!
Today I’m also going to be planting some herbs for my windows. I have a nice thyme plant growing already and bought a little rosemary shrub but it unfortunately didn’t get replanted in time. So I hope that I can start some from seed, as well as dill, parsley and fine leaf basil. We’re also going to give stevia seeds another go, just because we have them here. And I’ll be starting another pot of lemon grass for the puppers as well as a new patch of cat grass for our kitties.
Oh, and did you know that mint can be used to repel rodents?? I’ll be cutting some of ours down later and spreading it in the mud room and our storage rooms where I’ve definitely seen mice lurking. Can’t leave out poison everywhere and the traps rarely work…but if they will stay away just because of the mint, I’ll be thrilled! We have more than enough of it in our garden!
