Tuesday
(I’m running out of title ideas, can you tell?)
The rain held off till about mid-afternoon, so between that and lower temps than Monday, I got most of the major stuff I wanted to accomplish in the garden done. The tomato plants’ve been cleaned out, the cages put away till spring, and the wisteria is staked up — thanks to Mr. E pounding the stakes in, since I could barely reach the tops, much less wield the sledge. Even he had to use the bed of the garden trailer to stand on! Then he kindly used it to haul the tomato carcasses back to Carl-the-Landlord’s huge compost heap back in the woods.
That leaves the only major thing I still need to do, namely transplanting the blackberries to back by the blueberries, so all the perennials are in the same area. This has several advantages, including making it much simpler for Carl to tractor-rototill it in the spring.
And maybe other times, next year, if necessary. We were chatting this morning, and I commented about being out of shape and how I hated it. He replied that surgery took a long time to recover from completely (but, blast it, I feel fine!), and that if he tills more than I want to plant and take care of, rather than me fighting with weeds the way I had to this year (Roundup equivalent, mostly) since I couldn’t put down my usual straw mulch, he’d till the unused part every so often. I’m hoping that with the exercise I’m planning, and the fact that I’m in good enough shape even now to put down straw, that I won’t have to take him up on that kind offer.
There’s still enough small stuff that needs done in both the flower and veggie beds to take care of until it gets too cold to work outside, but I’m feeling better about it now that the big stuff is almost all taken care of.
