Another Five Hours of Work

Hard work, that took it's toll on my body, believe me. 

I took the truck today, and thought I was being smart unloading the dirt here. 

Then I started on the five remaining planting boxes in this section.  See that second box? 

There was a lamb's quarter weed in there that I had to literally cut apart with the big cutters... and it still took 30 minutes to dig it out.  It wore me out. 

But, I got a little reward when I got down to the last box. 

This is the last box.  Can you see what is hiding in the weeds?  A huge tomato plant!

There were actually five in the box, and one of the smaller ones had tomatoes on it.  I stopped, trekked up to the porch, and got a bucket with water and put them in it. 

I cleaned carefully around the big tomato plant. 

I staked both the smaller tomato on the left... and this big one in the front. 

You can see a weed pile to the right... more about that in a minute.  There was another 

weed pile off to the left, from the last two boxes on that side. 

See where the bags of dirt are?  That's where I erred... I should have pulled the truck around to the right in this picture, between the vegetable beds and the henspa. 

I carried fifteen bags... from where you see them, and three from yesterday I had unloaded in the yard. 

My back.  That's all I'll say. 

As an experiment, I planted two more of the tomato plants in the end bed, and staked them.  It will be interesting to see how they do. 

You can't tell, but I also tied them up to the posts, or rather, tied baling twine around them to hold them in. 

They got many buckets of water, all four plants. 

See the pile of weeds?  

It took everything I had in me to throw them in the back of the truck. 

I had to leave the other big pile for next week, I just could not lift another thing. 

See this mess?  That's next week's project.  I'm going to limit myself to two hours a day, and not tear my body up like I did today. 

I'm going to empty those planting beds out .... they are the ones that are trellised... and try to fill them as much as possible with the garden dirt.  Then I'll put the straw on them, too... I bought two bales. 

We are expecting storms tomorrow, and I have family things to do... so maybe Monday I'll start again and slowly empty those beds out.  See the weeds to the left in the pile?  They were heavy and awkward, and I appreciate Keith taking the first batch  to the transfer station for me so much! 

I'll have to drive the truck next week, and start loading this pile, and the subsequent ones. 

I had to sit frequently... my back is just beyond sore right now.  

I looked at the dying walnut tree... so majestic... and realized that it is dropping 

leaves right and left! 

Last year, in July, I realized they were dropping, and mentioned it in a blog post... but 

here it is June 27, and they were raining down!   The walnuts are always the last to leaf out, and the first to drop. 

I was so tired, I didn't go over and eat any mulberries on the huge tree out of sight to the right... 

I just couldn't do it. 

But, happily, I didn't get the truck stuck in the yard (Keith!) and managed to get back out to the driveway with no trouble.  

I stopped on the way out and ran back and took this shot... it's one of our apple trees, full of fruit! 

It was a happy ending to a hard day.