What I did while the rest of Chicago was watching football
I took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather yesterday to finally raze the overgrown garden plot in back. It was overrun with weeds and mutantly overgrown tomato and mint. From all of the biomass I cleared out of there, I probably could have made a salad to feed 300 people.
Part of the cleanup involved a final mowing that helped clear a bunch of dead leaves out of the front lawn. I seriously hate raking leaves, and have somehow managed to avoid it this fall. Our neighbor to the south has a tree in their front yard with obnoxious super-tiny leaves that get EVERYWHERE, so I doubt it will stay clear for too long. Especially considering they're predicting a huge windstorm tomorrow with 60 mph winds. Ah well, maybe all of the leaves will blow away or back onto my neighbor's lawn.
We also emptied and stored the containers that had dying annuals. I pretty much just gave up on watering them after a certain point and let them die.
I almost didn't raze the back garden, but I'm glad I did, if only to spend a few hours in the beautiful warm weather. It will also mean we don't have to look at the ugly dying garden all winter, and hopefully saved us some work next year. Starting next spring, as part of our massive landscaping project, we're planning to tear up the entire back plot and replace it with 3 or 4 raised beds. I haven't posted all the details about this project yet, but I will soon.
Part of the cleanup involved a final mowing that helped clear a bunch of dead leaves out of the front lawn. I seriously hate raking leaves, and have somehow managed to avoid it this fall. Our neighbor to the south has a tree in their front yard with obnoxious super-tiny leaves that get EVERYWHERE, so I doubt it will stay clear for too long. Especially considering they're predicting a huge windstorm tomorrow with 60 mph winds. Ah well, maybe all of the leaves will blow away or back onto my neighbor's lawn.
We also emptied and stored the containers that had dying annuals. I pretty much just gave up on watering them after a certain point and let them die.
I almost didn't raze the back garden, but I'm glad I did, if only to spend a few hours in the beautiful warm weather. It will also mean we don't have to look at the ugly dying garden all winter, and hopefully saved us some work next year. Starting next spring, as part of our massive landscaping project, we're planning to tear up the entire back plot and replace it with 3 or 4 raised beds. I haven't posted all the details about this project yet, but I will soon.
2 shout-outs:
Laura, when we lived in Chicago, we had a little garden plot like this one. We added peat moss and sawdust to the soil, and it was like gold. Chicago dirt is the best! You did a nice job. Uncle Bert never liked raking leaves either, sow he just mowed them up.
Good luck with the raised bed plan...I just finally "finished" this year the four raised veggie beds I built at the beginning of 2009...it was tough labor, but "easy" to figure out when all was said and done. And the veggies did great in them, so I was happy...
Post a Comment