Arrrgh!!!

...to the quality of work I was doing in May and June that the gardens have survived so well with so little attention since June 10th. Before I hurt my knee the gardens had never looked better. In all fairness, the gardens are at their best in May and early June, but the weeding, mulching, fertilizing, and planting of new plants was coming along very nicely. My sister, Nan, helped that plan along by getting the last of the plants that I had purchased in May into the ground for me. The perennials have a nice start, and thanks to heavy mulch, there isn't a horrible amount of weeding to be done.

Today, was the first time I have been able to get into the gardens to weed. I worked around the edges of the garden at the front side walk, pulling out crab grass, trimming back iris and coreopsis, and pulling elm tree seedlings. I tried kneeling on my left knee with my right leg extended to the side, but that was uncomfortable, so I tested my weight on the outside edge of my right knee cap. With a foam kneeler, some Advil, and very judicious movement of my weight, it worked. I weeded for an hour or so in the morning, and another thirty minutes this evening.

I wear latex gloves when I weed. I took a plastic grocery bag out and used it as a barrier over my arm to pull a poison ivy plant that had taken hold in my favorite iris. I'll have to be cautious for the rest of the year, because it's likely that the iris leaves have traces of the oil from the poison ivy.

It seems that we are expecting rain off and on this week. The lawn has been grinning at us and waving. Soon we'll loose small children in it. Dear Husband has used his spare time this week to cut down the trees that fell over last week, so the mowing has gone wanting. I asked my stepson to fill in with an hour of mowing today, and I used the walk behind mower to trim the north lawn around the herb garden. I still need to use the string trimmer, but things are looking MUCH neater. It's satisfying to see these chores done.