Catching Up

ONE FLOWER BED DONE!

I've learned some interesting lessons this past month about being patient and tempering my perspective. At the end of April, I came down with the flu that turned into pneumonia. For the past four weeks at the height of spring garden preparation, I have been virtually incapacitated both in gardening, blogging and working. For some reason my mind did not work very well when I could not breath. It has been frustrating at times but mostly it's taught me a good lesson in patience and acceptance. All things will happen in good time (or not).

We've had some perfect garden WOOs (Window of Opportunity) as Carol of May Dreams Gardens addressed in her Garden WOO blog last Sunday. But I've just had to ignore them. Although my whole yard should look great by now with little or no weeds and the vegetable garden planted, I am thrilled that I got one half of one flower bed done! I admit this is a project I started before I got sick but I was finally able to finish it up in little bits and pieces over the Memorial Day weekend.

THESE ARE THE BEFORE PICTURES
Can you tell there's Heather and Ornamental Grasses in there somewhere?

I appreciate having help from Ralph along the way. He's a great compost spreader! Reading gardening blogs has helped me feel 'in the loop'. I'm looking forward to catching up but will do it slowly. Fortunately, we live in the country so if it doesn't all get done, we can just say we've decided to go back to nature this year!

Get Rid of Weeds With Boiling Hot Water

Did you know that one of the best organic ways to get rid of grass or weeds in the crevices of your sidewalk or in your drive is to treat them with boiling hot water? It's fast, it's easy and doesn't require any herbicides. As with any weeding, you need to be careful that you don't harm surrounding vegetation so be careful where you are pouring the hot water. It takes a few days to see results.


This a difficult area to dig out.


Boil water in a pan.


Pour boiling water on vegetation.


After a few days, scrape off dead vegetation.

THE GREAT GARDEN BLOGGERS' HOE DOWN!

I am so excited to be a part of the first GARDEN BLOGGERS HOE DOWN. I was hoping to do a really blow out job with all my hoes (wherever I could find them) but instead I came down with the flu and was out of commission all week. The good news is I got well just in time to snap a few pictures.

The star of our show is the circlehoe since my husband is the inventor. This design actually evolved during a period of about 8 to 10 years. As a gardener since the age of 7, Ralph spent a lifetime hoeing and says "During each growing season the frustration of having whacked too many of my plants became more and more intolerable. So, every year I would modify some off-the-shelf product trying to whip up some kind of a high performance weeder/cultivator. Ultimately, I built a forge and started to beat the steel into a blade shape that would provide the desired affect in areas of my maturing gardens where plants were close together."

Some of those modified hoes are pictured above and are still used in certain situations. As Carol said in her most recent post on Gardening Lessons From The Hoes, "Not every hoe can do every kind of hoeing; some are good for breaking ground, others for weeding in tight spaces." I think of it like knives in the kitchen. You don't use the same knife for everything you do.

One of my favorites is an old hoe that was on the property when we bought it. It's made out of an old cultivator tine. I use it a lot for making furrows in the vegetable garden.

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This is one of Ralph's designs. He calls it The Terminator!

This was fun. I wish I had more time but we're off to do another garden show today. Hope you all have a great time. See you next year!