Let's Try Again

OK - Others have done it.  I can too - it's time to share the ugly truth.  Here is the state of two of the vegetable beds. They haven't had attention since last summer.   I had delayed doing anything as I didn't know where to start recovery, or when.   Finally, I thought about how we started our garden  - weed blocking/mulching.  
 

1st - Shorten the weeds/grass.  I asked (bribed) DH to weed-eat it (leaving the flower bunches standing cost extra).

2nd - Mulch what's left with coffee bags to block out light and smother the weeds/grass.

3rd - Let the worms and coffee bags work while I go visit family in the midwest

4th - Plant stuff and hope for sunshine. 

Here, you can see the two mulched rows.  The row closest to the chairs is full of flowers, chamomile, lambs ear, hyssop and other herbs.  The bees will love this row as is, so we'll call it intentional.   The next row has tomatoes and beans planted last Tuesday, along with the chives and fennel already in place.  

It was from under a sheet of weed blocking plywood we first saw Petunia, the snake.  Along with the earth worms that love living under the coffee bags, maybe Petunia will have moved in by the time I return.

Now, the other flower and herb rows need care, but that can be the summer project.

January Garden Progress

This was the garden on Saturday, after no garden tending for months and months.  The wind blew down the climbing bean structure and I'd never trimmed up the flower and herb stalks or taken down the peas and tomato supports.   I didn't know when I'd have time to do what needed done, so hadn't started.

But, then I decided I could put the greenhouse panels back in place while it wasn't raining.  Maybe I could remove the bean and pea structures since I was out there, and just some of the trimming ....

And then remembered the jute green coffee bags still in the truck.   Easy enough to put down fresh ones to cover the weeds and open up the paths between the beds.   Getting access for light, air and the gardener is one step forward in my garden.  This will make spring prep on the garden beds that much easier.

It is a little hard to tell, but the beds are about 4 feet wide and the pathways are about 2 feet.  Not all of the pathways got covered before dark, but now the bags in place can be doing there thing even in the rain.

Click on the Garden-Monthly Photo label below to see the garden at other times.

Mulch Run

The annual load of green coffee bags is in. You can see I had excellent bag stuffers too. This is more bags than I've had in the back of the Subaru before. There aren't too many other types of mulches I could stuff in the car like this.
I unloaded most of them into the barn. To stop the weeds that had started poking up in the paths, I also put down a new layer of bags in the pathways. It has been raining on them all week so that has now flatten them down nicely. Some of the previous bags on the paths had complete decomposed.

On another topic...
You can see the delinquent Brussels sprout plants, above. They are doing some sort of growing now, but they are still so short and not really producing little sprouts. I think I just started them too late last year and they were not were they needed to be size wise once winter arrived.

Status updates....
From the seeds planted indoors on Sunday, there are a couple sprouts almost though the soil. Either basil, tomato or onion. I didn't label the various containers as I'll be able to tell after they fully sprout... I think.

And Frog is singing in the little garden pond just off the patio. There were two different frogs out there for several days, but in these last few days, I only hear the one.

Headline: Neighbors Share Gold!

Thanks to our Homesteading neighbors, our pumpkin patch has become a little richer. Used goat straw (see the cute girls here)! For two garden years, my mulch of choice was used sheep straw (see the sheep here). We've had a whole year without them so I was happy to have the goat straw today.
The pumpkin patch only had burlap green coffee bags over it to keep down the weeds. So, I flipped the coffee bags over onto the grassy pathway (hard to mow, anyway) and spread the straw on the pumpkin patch. Later, I may add more coffee bags over the straw to help it break down and to discourage weeds. Thanks, Neighbors! Just what we needed!

Yes, a beautiful January day and a needed mid-winter Garden Tend. I'll post a sunny garden overview photo in a few days.