What have you done today in the Garden?

@Pacnorwest I
My mother was using a sickle on the grass edges, (this was before weedeaters came along) and she hit an old gnarly stump. I was only 3 years old at the time and standing just outside the front door watching her.

When she hit that stump a whole giant swarm of yellow jackets, like a cloud, appeared and surrounded her. She came running towards the house and was dressed all in black so you could clearly see them all over her arms. It scared me so bad that I ran inside and locked the door.

She was banging on that door telling me to let her in and I stood there and just shook my head no. My grandmother came running to let her in and asked why I didn't open the door. "I am not that stupid Nana," I told her, " I don't wanna get stung. "!!

That was the only time I didn't get a beating for disobeying. Her arms were too sore to hit me with !!

 

It was time to do the strawbs and mow the grass paths. It is a question of timing: the plants have to be ready for it, we have to be at a point where we can beak-off other chores and the weather forecast must be favourable (in this case, rain must be coming). All factors were aligned so we sprung into action.

After he plots, the paths were quickly done.

The strawb harvest was done They have had some time to recuperate from the “strain” of producing all that fruit…and the production was bountiful. The rule-of-thumb last date for leaf removal was approaching.

The first bed was done removing most of the leaves and all of the runners. They look a bit sad. We leave the straw mulch to help retain moisture with the hottest and dryest period of the season just around the corner.


We filled two bushel trugs with their foliage! We did water them just in case the forecast rain did not materialise.

Here you can see the finished Daroyal patch, with the brand new patch of Falco’s in the distance.


This new patch of Strawberry ‘Falco’ was planted this Spring. We had a couple of their fruit to sample the flavour, but removed the res so that the youngsters could develop their roots further. Their pruning will aid that further and stimulate the plants to produce some leaves to get them through the winter.

Here is the Falco patch, all ship-shape and Bristol fashion:


I was pleased with their mulch. It was the spent leaves and stems of the Hakonechloa grass plants instead of straw. We are using our own plant debris more and more for plot mulching rather than bales of straw.

We fed and watered all Project Toms.

Finally, we had to tie-up some corn stalks— they had broken just under the tassels. We hastily threw together a sort of support system that would give those climbing beans somewhere to go. The corn stalks were totally inadequate to support their weight. The bamboo is very old and cracked, so I am not sure if this will help at all. We shall see.

 

It turned out that the nearness of the storm produced a lovely breeze this morning so, I got going !! Got one big Loropetalum that is planted to hide my HVAC unit all trimmed up and deposited a wheelbarrow full of clipping in the ditch for pickup. Then I weedeated and weeded as I went along. Tidied up all the daylilies which are on their summer rest and discovered a tree that I couldn't pull out by hand growing amongst my rambling rose !! Have to dig that out in fall since disturbing the rose roots now wouldn't be advisable.

Then I pruned three ramblers, watered my pomegranet tree and removed three low lying and crossing branches on my peach tree. They were in the way for trimming the grass around the tree anyway. Then watered my potatoes and beans because you just can not rely on weather predictions these days as @Sjoerd said in his post.

PS Just as I typed that last sentence, it started to rain !!