On Tuesday morning, I was up at 5AM and got my posts up, then I finished cleaning the picture frames and hung them back up. I needed to clean off the kitchen table to hold all the seedlings going to the cold frame. Once that filled, I started putting them on the porch. Then the kitchen counter.
When my general helper arrived at 8AM, she started taking them outside to the cold frame. Then she started feeding them.
The day started out cloudy and cool but the forecast was for 83F and sunny, so I started taking down the lights in the dining room. I needed to be able to pull the shades down to keep the sun out or we would boil inside.
Then I started taking them down on the porch. I hope to get the dehydrators out and running soon.
This left the roundtop window which still had 2 places for trays. We didn’t put anything away as the next focus was getting the Small garden mulched.
I may have cut it a bit close, as I need 5 spots for the last seed starting on Wednesday. But I think I can get 3 on the bottom shelf in the office.
So the other half of the cold frame is ⅔ full.
As soon as we finished these things, we went up and got a load of 21 bales of mulch from the barn.
I didn’t think that would be enough, but I had other mulching to do so we had to get another truckload of 21.
Next we got the Big rose, hibiscus (which is just coming up) and mountain laurel mulched.
Next was the Anne raspberry at the south end of the Small garden. The mulch in a couple bales had multiflora rose briars, so that was fun, trying to push it in around the raspberry canes.
That makes 10 gardens finished, and a couple dozen to go.
When we finished we still had 11 bales left, so we put them in the Big garden.
Big garden – rhubarb with lots of flowers to be pulled off
New East garden – creeping veronica under the mock orange
We got done at noon and I was wiped out. I got a shower and rested all afternoon.
My son went out to start the weedwacking on the back 40. He got this area cleaned up nicely. I need my brother to take the tractor bucket and smooth out the big lumps so I can keep it mowed.
Then my son worked his way down the south side of the back 40 to the sandhill.
It’s to rain all day each day on Wednesday and Thursday which will be good for the gardens. I saw the catnip and a couple others had wilted in the sun on Tuesday.
My general helper will be here at 8AM on Wednesday and we will put away all the lights I took down, hang curtains in the dining room, do the last seed starting of 5 trays, and other inside jobs along with errands and shopping.