Locust Hill's upkeep seems to be just too much this summer. I don't know why it should be any different this year than last, but every time I turn around there's something that needs doing. The vegetable garden has required constant attention, and not just because of the weeds that seem to grow faster than the vegetables. First it was the zucchinis getting bigger than baseball bats so I had to break them up and feed them to the sheep.Then it was the tomatoes crying out to be tied up and the suckers nipped off in the crotch of every branch.
Once those little chores were done and I started tackling the weeds, I saw that the cucumbers were sprawled across the ground instead of climbing up the sunflowers as I'd planned. With a little work I convinced them to twine around those sturdy stems. Then it was time to pull down the dead pea vines who had certainly done yeoman service, providing me with plenty of peas every day for weeks. When I went back to weeding I discovered the pepper plants were loaded with big green globes that should be harvested and gotten into the freezer. No time for weeding.
Lawn needs mowing.
After last week's heavy rain all the hollyhocks leaned over in exhaustion and needed to be cut down before they fell down. The perennial border's weeds were getting out of hand, but that chore turned into a dozen. The feverfew was past its prime and needed to be cut back; the quince bushes, always eager to flourish beyond an appropriate size for the border, needed serious pruning; deadheading, staking, uprooting invasive artemisia, heliopsis, phlox seedlings.
My pink poppies had all produced their handsome capsules of seeds. These annuals pop up everywhere, about 50 among the rhododendrons above the stone wall, dozens in the Abitta garden and the perennial border. I pulled them all, deciding that I would scatter them all over the knoll in hopes they'd turn it into a pink display next summer. Being too tired to walk, I drove them up to the knoll in the lawn tractor.
Uh oh, lawn needs mowing.
Oh, my gosh, the raspberries must be ripe! Sure enough, when I went out it took only a few minutes to get enough to put on my cereal. Not a great crop this year as I couldn't water during that early dry spell, but frankly I'm relieved. Maybe I can skip standing over a hot stove making jam! The weeds in the vegetable garden are back. No, thank goodness, once pulled up, weeds don't come back, but more have arrived.
Just walking up to hang out the laundry I see half a dozen chores I've not gotten around to - pulling the stray vines of Gill-over-the-ground out of the pachysandra beds, replanting the pachysandra that Rumple dug up the other day, weeding the area around the propane tank where I've put a small fence for the newly planted trumpet vine to climb, pulling the clover from the mats of thyme at the top of the stairs before it is so firmly embedded I can't.
Mow the lawn, again.
Time to rearrange the iris which is getting much too crowded. And while I'm at it, stake the delphiniums, remove the faded astilbe and lady's mantle blooms. Get the clipper and turn the phlox into a choir. By that I mean cut the stalks back, layer by layer from front to back so everyone in the choir can see, or in the case of phlox, all the flowers can be seen.
I could go on listing the chores, but instead I'll describe the backyard project I started and haven't finished. I love killing two birds with one stone, except that I hate that expression, so let's say kill two wasps with one swat. This project is actually killing four wasps with one swat.
Many years ago I turned the back yard into the Monet garden. I scattered a collection of 150 seed varieties onto what had been a very large vegetable garden, and a fabulous flower garden emerged. Hank and I made a pebbled walkway between the garden and the house, lining the edge with railroad ties. When the Monet garden became too much, we turned it into lawn. Although it was no longer needed, we left the walkway in place. Each spring Hank sprayed it with weed killer, so it at least looked respectable. Not this spring. No one sprayed weed killer, and as a consequence the walkway became an ugly mess of weeds.
Getting rid of the walkway was the
biggest "wasp" I wanted to kill. But I
needed the railroad ties to replace
some that had rotted at the top of the
flowering bank. That was the second
"wasp". I needed the pebbles to fill in
some unsightly holes in the driveway,
the third "wasp'. I had so I much com-
post I didn't know where to store it when
I started the new compost pile. I figured
I could use it on the walkway since I
intended to continue the lawn right up
to the house, so using the compost was
the fourth "wasp".
This project is not finished, but killing all those wasps has given me a marvelous feeling of satisfaction. It's also proving to be a lot of work, and it's time to mow the lawn, again. Time to weed the front terrace, pick more raspberries, hang out the laundry, oh, and play a little tennis. I hope you're enjoying your summer as much as I am.
P.S. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. I felt pretty silly racing across the lawn to hop on the mower before the self-timer on the camera clicked!
