First off, before I get into the meat of my post, I should take a moment to celebrate a bit of a milestone. I was fairly close before my long hiatus, but today I finally hit a whopping 75,000 page views! It is quite an accomplishment since I had recently switched from my old hosting site (thanks Judy for all you did to start my blogging "career") and I'm quite certain I was over this mark there. I can't count the times I crashed her host service or made them make her pay more for the hits back when the infamous potato bin article hit on the Seattle Times. My old photo hosting site even booted me AFTER I stopped blogging since it was so popular. Silly people. Anyway, I celebrated with my eldest son this morning as we crossed over a bit of a milestone. He thought it was cool.
Now for the real success of the day. After ditching the kids my wife and I had the house to ourselves. That allowed me to convince her to help me weed the garden beds. We got to try out the stirrup hoe for real and found it not as useful as I'd hoped. The broad fork was much better at bringing up clumps of weeds. You may recall what the beds looked like before we started...
I shudder to think how bad this looks. But a lot of elbow grease later, we had really accomplished something.
As you can see above, the process was to dig up the weeds in big swaths, knock some of the dirt off, then throw it into the wheelbarrow. It wasn't as fast as we'd hoped, but it went fast enough. Many hands make light work. I'm so proud of my wife for helping me. I couldn't have done it without her.
Hehe, she just got a laugh out of my comment that out of 524 posts she finally made it on my blog. Well, 525 is the charm they say, or do they? Well, as you can see, the 11 foot bed is all done, and she pretty much tackled the entire 5 foot bed by herself. Way to go dear!
You can see next to her the broad fork, or short pitchfork or whatever it's called. It worked wonders to move it along. At least it did until we had a bit of a casualty.
Poor broad fork, you served me well. I'm hopeful I can find a replacement handle, maybe one that's metal and will hold up better, but I was in the middle of my 4 foot bed and prying up on the edge when it happened. Oops. It still worked well enough, but I want to fix it, or at least replace it. Quite the handy tool. It helped us get to about here with only two wheelbarrows full of dirt and weeds. That's when my wife went inside to nurse a wound.
While she was inside, I unloaded the second of three wheelbarrows into the chicken run. I was too tired to unburry the doors so they'd open large enough for a wheelbarrow to fit inside, so I ripped a hinge off the bottom of the left hand door. Oh well, it still works for now. I'll fix it later.
The dirt probably has some bugs in it for the girls too, and if you can see the gaps under the footings, the dogs have been digging their way in. I need to beef up the protection, especially when the new chicks arrive.
But don't the beds look nice after all our hard work today?
We got three of the four beds done in about two hours. I'm so pleased even though I know we didn't do as thorough of a job as we needed to. As my commentators said, it's going to be a long slog to rid myself of weeds after letting the beds get that bad. I think tomorrow after we finish I'll pick up some black plastic to put over the beds for a few weeks while the seeds germinate and seedlings grow and harden off before removing and planting. Does that sound like a good plan or is it a pipe dream to think it will help?
I bet you never saw someone so happy about weeding, but I haven't had my garden looking this good in a year. And no, I don't weed other people's gardens, hehe. I can't wait to finish up tomorrow. Hopefully I'll even be able to start some seeds. And yes, I realize I'm way behind the curve.
Oh, and I love comments, so please talk to me.
Now for the real success of the day. After ditching the kids my wife and I had the house to ourselves. That allowed me to convince her to help me weed the garden beds. We got to try out the stirrup hoe for real and found it not as useful as I'd hoped. The broad fork was much better at bringing up clumps of weeds. You may recall what the beds looked like before we started...
I shudder to think how bad this looks. But a lot of elbow grease later, we had really accomplished something.
Hehe, she just got a laugh out of my comment that out of 524 posts she finally made it on my blog. Well, 525 is the charm they say, or do they? Well, as you can see, the 11 foot bed is all done, and she pretty much tackled the entire 5 foot bed by herself. Way to go dear!
You can see next to her the broad fork, or short pitchfork or whatever it's called. It worked wonders to move it along. At least it did until we had a bit of a casualty.
Poor broad fork, you served me well. I'm hopeful I can find a replacement handle, maybe one that's metal and will hold up better, but I was in the middle of my 4 foot bed and prying up on the edge when it happened. Oops. It still worked well enough, but I want to fix it, or at least replace it. Quite the handy tool. It helped us get to about here with only two wheelbarrows full of dirt and weeds. That's when my wife went inside to nurse a wound.
While she was inside, I unloaded the second of three wheelbarrows into the chicken run. I was too tired to unburry the doors so they'd open large enough for a wheelbarrow to fit inside, so I ripped a hinge off the bottom of the left hand door. Oh well, it still works for now. I'll fix it later.
But don't the beds look nice after all our hard work today?
We got three of the four beds done in about two hours. I'm so pleased even though I know we didn't do as thorough of a job as we needed to. As my commentators said, it's going to be a long slog to rid myself of weeds after letting the beds get that bad. I think tomorrow after we finish I'll pick up some black plastic to put over the beds for a few weeks while the seeds germinate and seedlings grow and harden off before removing and planting. Does that sound like a good plan or is it a pipe dream to think it will help?
Oh, and I love comments, so please talk to me.
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