Instrument of Grace: Hard Work Equals Progress

Last weekend, I posted about all the things we planned to plant on Sunday. We didn't get it done then, and it's still not all done, but we are making progress.

Today, we planted 3 Happy Returns daylilies, 3 Lambs Ears and a couple of Black Mondo Grass. These were all "leftovers" from our perennial border redo last fall. They survived just fine in black plastic pots over the winter, nestled up against the south side of the house. Even though we had one really cold snap when it got down to one below zero, the plants did just fine. Now they are in their new home. But I still have a lot of pots with leftovers . . . . . .

The back border is completely weeded and mulched. I found enough rocks to almost finish lining the path garden. We got the pressure-treated boards for our woodpile moved to their new place behind the shed, and they are now ready for the wood to be stacked. We have a little left from last year. I helped Garden Man cut up a bunch of logs from trees and saplings he took out of the swale earlier this year. When we were done, he split some of the larger pieces. There's a nice pile waiting for Garden Punk to stack. It won't be enough to keep us in fires this winter, but it's a start.

We did some more weeding and mulching over by the fence, and I pulled a huge bag of brambles and weeds from the back of the back bed. There is a 30 foot wide buffer zone between our property and the yards behind us. It belongs to the Columbia Association, and it's mostly wild. You can translate that to these plants: honeysuckle, poke, brambles, garlic mustard, wild strawberry and poison ivy. I tried to clean some of it up before it got ahead of us. We'd already pulled the garlic mustard earlier to keep it from going to seed.

I tried to corral the cucumber vines which seem to have grown about a foot since yesterday. Unfortunately, they weren't growing toward the trellis; they were making for the tomatoes. Maybe I should have let them duke it out, but I didn't. I harvested enough lettuce for sandwiches for Garden Man and Garden Punk and a bowl of salad for me. It's getting hot, so the lettuce won't be around much longer. We're enjoying it while we can. We picked our first raspberry and our first blueberry today. Although there is more work to be done tomorrow, life is certainly good.