AngelsGarden's Blog
AngelsGarden's posts about: compost
Aug 20, 2007 | 10:07 AM PST
Tags: Fire ants , eggplant , compost , heat
The temps are moderating a little. I have miss being in the garden, working and feeling strong from the exercise. Frankly, the garden looks terrible!!! Since I've not been feeling well, and the heat so intense, I have just stuck mainly to housework. But when I got up this morning it was only 71F, so by the time I got back from taking my daughter to school it still wasn't too bad.
I went out to have a look around. Collected some eggs, eggplant, peppers and the first cucumber from my second planting.
My compost pile is ok to spread around in the flower beds, even though its not completely broken down, I did find the occasional egg shell. I even found a banana sticker. I spread four 4 gal. buckets around in one area. I will keep at it until the compost bin is empty of usable stuff. Then I will put in the spent plants that need to be cleaned from the garden. I can also start adding grass clippings again along with the fall leaves.
I also took the pitch fork and loosened around the eggplants, then pulled them up. They weren't doing very well anymore. Fire ants had decided that they liked them. They were climbing the stems, eating holes here and there. They especially liked the flowers and the fruits, right were they connected to the plant.
I set the sprinkler for the peppers and melons then came inside. It was good to get back to gardening, but enough for this morning.
If you look really close you can see a couple of fire ants in the center of the black area where they have been chewing.
Jun 22, 2007 | 7:52 AM PST
Tags: grass , compost , zucchini , leaf footed bugs , squash borers , mowing
Wed. evening I was able to get out into the garden and get 4 buckets of the bane of my garden removed...GRASS. I had to use the pitch fork to loosen the soil so I could get the runners from under the soil. When we tilled it early this spring to add the rabbit manure we didn't remove all of this grass first. Now it is all coming back from all of the little pieces that were chopped up and are now under the soil. I am lucky in the fact that my 5 yr old is a gardener to the bone like me, she loves and begs to help when I am doing things like that. I would show here were to put the pitch fork and she would get on and rock side to side to get it down in the soil. She doesn't weigh much but she is determined. Then we would pull it back to loosen the area where we wanted to work. Its nice to have someone around that enjoys gardening like I do, even the weeding. Its still satisfying to get it removed, even if it is just pulling grass. I got a good area cleared out and hope to get the rest done by the end of the weekend.
After all of the grass is removed I will be planting where needed. I will remove all Zucc. plants as they have been too damaged by the leaf footed bugs and squash borers. I need to get a list together of all that I will be planting. I just picked up some more seeds last week that are clearanced because its summer now.
Last night I mowed the back yard. It had gotten kind of tall because of all the rain we have had lately. Its been good for the garden though, I haven't had to water the garden in quit awhile. I used the bagger on the mower and put some of the clippings in the compost, its getting pretty damp though. I spread the rest of them around in different places along fences and such where it will help to keep down weeds and or grass. I am doing much better this year with keeping the yard mowed. At least I don't have scruffy, leather faced guys coming to the door asking to mow the yard yet this year. LOL
