On Tuesday morning I was out in the Big garden by 6:30AM. I started at the south end and got the garlic cleaned out, the markers pulled out, and the row string taken down.
Then I continued cleaning out that third of the garden. It wasn’t bad except for a few bales of hay that had sprouted tons of grass in the leaves. That doesn’t happen often and it was mostly under the shade of the trees. I guess it stayed moist enough to do that.
I got the third done and all the sleds were full. My #2 intern was due at 9AM but I couldn’t check to see if she had sent me a message as my husband’s old cell phone is dying.
So I went back to cleaning out, this time on the north end where I hoped to get pea fences up. She arrived at 10AM and the first thing we did was take the truck up to the barn and load 21 bales of hay on it.
I wanted to make sure I had hay to cover the spots I’d cleared in the south end. The truck has major exhaust issues and Tom and my brother agreed that it was beyond their capabilities.
It needs to go in for inspection this month so we decided to tend to the usual things and send it in. If it passes, then I have time to deal with the exhaust. If it doesn’t, it will go into the shop to be done. I probably won’t have it to move hay if I need to.
Once the hay was done, we set to work cleaning out that north third. Once she had gotten the east side done, I started moving mulch. She had brought her dog with her.
My helper friend arrived at 10:20AM and I set him to pruning the big quince back. I had to go sit down for a while and he and my #2 intern finished moving the mulch and raking the area. I went to see how much amendment I had left from last year and discovered, none.
So my helper friend cleaned out the back of his truck (it’s much lower than mine) and we went up and got the cement mixer. I only had to make up Big and Small garden mixes. It took us a couple hours to do, then clean up the mixer and take it back to the barn.
While we were doing that, my #2 intern was cleaning out the middle third of the Big garden. I think that has finished that prep work.
Once she finished the Big garden, she went into the New Herb garden and started cleaning out the walkways. She got 3½ done before she had to go at 1:30PM.
We had just finished cleaning up from amendment making so I sent my helper friend to do an errand and I got a shower.
I was pretty wiped out and it was hot. It had reached 83F in the afternoon.
I ordered some supper and just laid on the couch watching ‘My Favorite Martian’ until bedtime at 8PM.
On Wednesday I have to be out mowing the yard by 7AM because rain is forecast by 11AM and it will be a 4 hour job. That should finish me off for the day.
