Wednesday, April 13, 2011

I'm a bad blogger!

I haven't posted anything in two whole months! So yeah, I suck! I've been so busy, but not much of it has been creative. I didn't feel it was worth sharing, but the time has come to at least check in, right?

In a nut shell, I've been pecking away at the shed we started building last fall. (I'll show you some other time.) We had been putting up with the inconvenience of not having a door all this time, using a piece of siding board to cover the opening, propped up with chairs and a ladder. Sheesh! It also needs insulation, interior wall board, wiring... you know, lights, outlets, the works. So that's happening simultaneously with the start of the 2011 garden. That's the other major push right now. Also there are little pieces of art beginning to evolve (the TAC 5x5 show in at the beginning of May, and I'm unsure of what to enter, so I'm making several), and I was knitting a few scarves back when it was a tad cooler, though that seems so long ago. And, do you remember the garden gate I started ages ago? I am a few steps farther along with that... so it looks like there are a lot of reports looming on the horizon. For now though, how about some garden news?

Last year, I let the garden go, and basically turned it over to the fire ants. It was insane.. and I sure paid the price for that move at the beginning of this season. This is what the garden space looked like only a couple of months ago...


You can't tell it from this photo, but much of it was over knee deep. There was no way this was going to get tilled, being primarily 'devil' grass. It sends off the nastiest runners, and it's above-ground stems are almost impervious to the rototiller blades. After much consideration, we decided the only thing we could do was burn it all off. We waited for a calm day and lit a match to the whole 5750 square feet of it, which worked perfectly. We were lucky to have a short window of opportunity without a burn ban in effect. So where we once had a dried brush field... Poof!



Before...


...and after burning, and tilling, and a bunch of 'hands-and-knees' work, pulling devil roots!...



Even these photos are older, as now there are beds starting to evolve, some looking rather lush.


After a few more days of 'shed work', I'll get back in the garden and capture more photos of real things growing!


See you soon!