Dirt And A Field Trip With Murph

It is 9000 degrees outside and Mark finally decided to get dirt.  Are you kidding me?

Break time.

We had to call in the big guns!  I don't know how we would ever get it all taken care of if it weren't for the garden angels.

The Goat Pen never looked better.

From the backside.

The raised beds.

The Strawberry Bed Garden.

Murph's favorite all-time place to shop for plants.

And he got to show off the gardens to Funke himself.

I just had to do it.

And this is our lot!

The Gardening Begins

 

Let the dream begin.

First things first.  Murph trying to fix our drainage problem.

We can't lose any more of that good natural goat fertilizer.

Getting the job done.

The groundhog tore up jack in the Native Perrinal Bed.  I will clean out the weeds but just let everything else go natural.

The strawberry beds are looking good.  Maybe not as thick as last year but we will see.

Cleaning out all the oak leaves.

Beds waiting for cucumbers and tomatoes.

This is going to be the newest adventure...the four sisters and guards.

Haven't come to any strategies in these beds as of yet.  Just give us a minute.

Comings and Goings In The Yard

 There are lots of creatures great and small that come through or live in our yard.  Somedays I see lots and sometimes not hardly any at all.  On these two days, I found one and one about ran over me at the bus stop.

I was cleaning out the last of the squash plants and saw this and thought it was a piece of corn that had started to mold.

On closer examination I thought might be some type of bug.  Was it good to have in the garden or not to that was the question?   From what Google Lens tells me it might be a dry-Mexican bean beetle.  If this is the case it is bad news.  Doing research to see what I need to do  Mike Meadows what do you think?  You are my go-to gardening guy.

Then Adi and I were at the bus stop waiting for Ava and Jon Milligan was picking up Louie when I hear a voice...Jan...it took me a second and then I saw this big buck.  Others have seen him in the neighborhood.  He ran right across the yard in front of us and into the woods.  Beautiful.  I couldn't get my hands and camera to cooperate so this is the shot I got.  Maybe I should be taking my big girl camera to the bus stop.

Gardens Are Sleeping

 It was time for all good things to come to an end.  We all hated to see the season end.

The gardens are now sleeping.

The strawberries have all been cut back and covered to keep them warm.  And the Tower Garden stands naked and alone.

The Pumpkin Patch is void of any color.  Maybe next year we will have better luck.

Flower beds are in deep slumber.

The Watermelon Patch has seen better days.  Maybe one day there will be a greenhouse here.

The Goat Pen has no more tomatoes or peppers.

The raised beds are waiting for new soil to top them off and then a layer of leaves.

It was a great adventure for sure.

Starting The Fall Clean-Up

 

Mark, Michael, and I triple-teamed it last night once it got a little cooler.  A quick tip we never even thought about...use the weed eater to take out all the dead hosta.  Done in minutes then rake everything to the grass and cut over it when you mow the yard.  Very little clean-up.  Brillant!  Work smarter not harder.

The yahoos and I started cleaning up the goat pen garden.  There are still vegetables to be picked.

The pumpkin patch is ready for the pumpkin fairy.

Tomatoes are all gone and the strawberries will be the next things trimmed back.

Two lone jalapeno plants are holding up progress in the raised beds.

Punkins and Melons

 

Look what we picked today!

And we found another little one.

The watermelons are amazing to me!

Mysteries

Looks like all these guys are on the vacation of their lives.  My poor pumpkin vines.  We got not even one pumpkin out of the actual pumpkin patch.

I'm thinking these are three separate stages of the dreaded stink bug or probably more likely squash beetles.

The squirrels have had a banquet on this beautiful, huge tomato from Mr. John's yard.

There are some beautiful strawberries left.  Amazing.  Early fall we will be cutting them back to about 2 inches tall for the winter.  We will cover them with straw and hope they go nuts next year like they did this year

Sad last really small and ugly cucumber.  They were a bust this year.  We planted twice.

The last little pumpkin on the vine.

Then I found that all the rest of the little pumpkins that were trying to hanging on were covered with some kind of mold.

Bug dance party on the pumpkin leaves before I burn them.