It was scary but someone had to do It

What with being away so much, and having so much rain, and getting other things done (like painting) I've paid little attention to the vegetable garden. During my occasional visits to pick some basil or tomatoes I couldn't help but notice that things were getting a bit wild and nature was having it's way merrily growing all kinds of green things that I never planted.

This is our second year with this garden. Last year we fenced an area against the deer and double dug a few rows and this year Ben double dug a few more rows. But about half of the fenced area hasn't been dug or planted and those places have plenty of weeds which can get big and thick and tall. Things had gotten so out of control that last night I was literally scared to go in!

So this morning I put on my heavy hiking shoes to protect me from whatever might be hiding in the tall growth and bravely went in to establish some order. At this point in the summer I have just basil, cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins and flowers, but I did want to keep them from being totally overtaken by weeds, and I had a notion to plant some more green beans. Here is one of the cucumbers valiantly making it's way across the greenery.



I worked for a couple of hours before it got to hot and had some success forging a path through the wilderness to get to the plants and weeding around the veggies and flowers. I put down some newspaper and cardboard to help keep the growth down and resolved to rotor tiller that whole plot after the first frost hits. Rotor tiller, dig in some horse and chicken manure from our neighbors, cover with black plastic, and hopefully we'll start next spring with a cleared, ready to plant plot.



Paul kept me company by hunting for bugs. He found all kinds but alas, no worm snakes. I think his friends the worm snakes have dug down deep to find cooler earth in these hot summer days.