Weekend Yardwork

We woke up this morning to gray skies and didn't think we'd get much done outside.  My Mister hurried out to mow the lawn before it rained, and I got back to work on the annuals in the front flowerbed, I bought them yesterday and got several planted (I also cleaned out the dead tulips), but had to stop because of the weather.  This morning, I got them all planted, and only got rained on a little.  Normally, I don't buy annuals, I like flowers that keep coming back every year, but there wasn't a lot in bloom right now, and I needed a little color.   I think the flowerbed could really use a for more perennials, but hopefully the annuals fill out and suffice for this year.  I pulled a couple of plants that I wasn't sure about- they could have been weeds or they could have been perennials.  My neighbor thought they were weeds, so out they went.  There's one other plant that is either a weed or a really big perennial.  I'm leaving it because it doesn't look bad and hasn't gone to seed yet.  It has a stake by it that says butterfly weed, so that's either what it is, or it's a weed that took over that perennial's spot.

I thought that would be the end of my work outside today, but after some minor hailing, the sky cleared up again.  I headed back out and started pulling weeds from around the fruit trees (if the trees look close together, it's because they are- it's called planting multiple trees in one hole).  I should have taken a before picture.  The weeds filled in the whole area around the fruit trees, and were nearly as tall.  We nearly filled our huge garbage can, just with weeds from this one area.  I had to use the shovel for some of the bigger weeds.  It was crazy. We also pulled out the dead apricot tree, which wasn't very hard because it had no roots on it.  All that's left to do here now is plant another apricot tree, build the second box, fill in around the edges to bring all the soil up to the proper level, and then mulch well to avoid the kind of weeds we pulled today.

I thought I'd take a break and watch my Mister work for awhile.  He was loosening the soil in two of the raised beds.  The far right one was full of wheat grass.  The chickens used to be in that bed, and all winter, we've been feeding them scoops of wheat that had weevils in it, well this spring, all the wheat that they hadn't eaten, grew like crazy, with all that good fertilizer the chickens had left behind. My Mister weed whacked it, pulled out the big stuff, and worked the rest back into the soil.  Hopefully it will be ready for some tomatoes and peppers on monday!  The other bed will get filled with corn.  The tiny space next to the chickens will be some kind of squash most likely, as will all the raised bed area around the perimeter of the yard that doesn't have something else planted already.  (You can see all the weeding that still needs to be done, we really let things get out of control this year!)

Since I was sitting near a weedy area, and not doing anything, I started pulling weeds.  I weeded around the lone black raspberry plant (which has actually multiplied quite a bit since last year, but is still kind of sad.  Don't ever plant just one cane.), the asparagus, the strawberries (which are doing great this year, and are so thick that there were hardly any weeds), the raspberries, and one section of grapes.  I also used some of the grass clippings to mulch around the asparagus.  I need more to mulch around the raspberries, and the strawberries are thick enough that I'm not mulching around them, though in the fall when we whack them all down, it might be a good time to cover the area with straw.

As I was weeding, I noticed the strawberries have been usurping asparagus and raspberry land, so I dug what at first seemed like just a few plants, but ended up with enough to give a nice start to a new strawberry bed under half of the grape vines.  The soil in that area is really wet, I'm not sure why, but hopefully the strawberries survive.  They're looking a little sad at this point, but they did just get dug up and transplanted, so maybe they'll recover.

The yard looks great, I think it's time for a BBQ (pork chops on the grill anyone?).