Gitter Done - The Garden

I'm linking up to Funky Junk Interiors Gitter Done Volume 2 party.  I hinted that this was an outdoor project that wasn't glamorous, but necessary.  It is broken into two parts. 

Part 1

Ooooh...my aching...everything.  My Gitter Done project was the garden.  Actually the garden itself wasn't too bad.  It's the raspberry patch that about did me in.  Thought they'd have to dig a 6 foot hole right there under the raspberries.  It had become a little...ahem...overgrown.  This project has taken several hours of several days!

We pause this program for a commercial break.  Please note the very cool barrel, on a stand, in the background of this last picture (never mind the weeds).  It is a rotating composter, manufactured by ComposTumbler.  It retails for well over $500...and it is not mine.  My neighbor lent it to me for the summer...can you BELIEVE it???  Sorry, didn't mean to shout, but it is so awesome!  It makes compost in 14 days.  You do have to give it two turns once everyday, which is why she is not using it this year.  I have no problem with that.  It produces black gold!   In one more week, I will have my first batch of lovely compost.  Okay...only a gardener can appreciate my excitement, but I had to share.

Now back to our regularly schedueled program.  Where were we...oh yes...the raspberry patch was seriously overgrown.  I just haven't had time to tackle it until now.  When I had time, it was always raining.  In fact I had to race a thunderstorm the first day I worked on it.  It was a tie...I got half the patch weeded before the storm hit.  It wasn't much of a storm...kind of blew past us...with just a little rain.  But I realized that I'd better quit for the day if I didn't want to be 6 feet under!

Let me tell you it was a jungle in there!  I spent about 3 hours just in the raspberries and only made it about half way down the row.  I was so well hidden that my son rode past me on his mini bike and didn't even see me.

I sat on my tush on a little cushion and scooted along, yanking weeds left and right.  This is what surrounded me:

I repeat...it was a jungle in there!  I also weeded the carrots.

 Before weeding

After weeding

My husband tilled between the rows.  He also tilled the corner of the garden where I had thrown some old flower seeds.  Nothing came up, so it's going into cover crop...or maybe we will just keep tilling the weeds under ;)

Here are some more after shots of the garden:

Part 2

"Take that you animal!"  "I will destroy you!"  "Give it up now...cause you're going down!"

Anyone who might have walked up my driveway, would have probably backed away quickly and called the police.  Not to worry...it was just me tackling this overgrown mess:

These are weeds to me.  I do not like the color orange (my sincere apologies to orange lovers).  So why do I have these orange lilies?  And why such a lot of them?  I can't even remember where I got them, but I thought they were yellow lilies when I planted them.  When they bloomed orange, I had good intentions of digging them out, but never quite got around to it.  They. took. over.

Can I just say, if you don't like a flower, and it spreads rather quickly, just dig it out now...or you will regret it!  Oh my what a job.  After digging all that out, the soil was still full of root fragments and tubers.  I had to use my soil sifter to sift out all of that, or the darn things would just grow back.  I made the sifter myself, but I'll show you that in a later post.

If your squeamish you might not want to look at the next pictures.  

The Carnage

I did not plant anything there yet, as the window above it is going to be replaced soon.  I'll wait until after that's done so my new rose doesn't get trampled!  I did add compost into the sifted soil, and it is good to let that rest and settle a bit before replanting anyway.

After tackling this mess I needed a shower badly.  I was covered in dirt, hot and sweaty.  

Oooooh...A shower never felt so good!