March 7, 2011 - Garden Cleanup

I felt half way human this morning. My cold seemed to be winding down, and the sun was shining, so it was a good time to start the garden cleanup! It was in dire need, as we left last fall while the garden was still alive and producing. You can just imagine what the winter weather did to it. There were dead morning glory vines all over the fence, dead hollyhocks, dead tomato plants, dead squash vines......just a garden full of dead. Even the raspberry posts and the dog kennel suffered the wrath of winter, and are sitting there askew from gale force winds, waiting to be set erect.

Half of the north garden got cleaned out. Notice the tipsy raspberry posts....that must have been a heck of a wind storm!

The tomato structure was disassembled, and the buckets emptied and stacked. They will be cleaned with soap, water and bleach, and reused for this year's tomato crop. I moved the two small hoop structures from the east garden, but the wood had rotted badly on one of them, so it had to be disassembled and disposed of. I do have room to move three or four of the better boxes from the east garden to use back here, which will give me quite a bit more planting room this year. All of these boxes need a fresh coat of paint.

By noon the clouds rolled in and it got too cold to work outside any longer. I need some warmer weather!

The results of a morning's work.

A sink full of overwintered carrots for Cookie. Even though they aren't fit for our consumption, the rabbit thinks they're delicious, and he eats them tops and all.