garden cleanup

Today 'clean the garden' was at the top of my to do list. After some relatively cool days, today was not the day for cleaning out the garden.  It was humid and rained a bit, then the sun came out and it got hot. Nasty, sticky, sweaty hot. Nice description, huh? It wasn't pleasant. With a few breaks for the heavier rain, I managed to get about 2/3 of the garden clean up done.

Here is what it looks like after a few months of neglect.

The dead tomatoes


Giant Turks Cap taking over the dead cucumber/watermelon/corn/green bean patches. It was massive.


It was nice to find some plants still growing under all that mess.

Jalapenos & basil


A tiny watermelon or two


B's little red impatiens.


The gerbera daisies


Here is vegetable half of the bed cleared out.


And the pile for bulk trash


You can see how massive that turks cap was. Some of the branches are close to 8 feet.


After all that work, I got to enjoy a treat, the baby watermelon.



I only got about 2/3 of the work done. I need to finish trimming back the turks caps. I need to shift the compost and add it to the raised beds. I'd love to get a big delivery of mulch and cover the bed well. I need to move the grass clippings from the side of the house into the mulch pile and get it cooking for the spring. Plus the vines are starting to take over the non-vegetable half of the bed. I need to attack them soon before they take over again.

I do feel good about the work I did get done and I crossed it off my to do list for now.