My Garden Thriving

Although Squash got snapped... 

Army Ball, Moldy Wall & Patrick's Promotion

Compost, Clover and Moss

So, I got inspired to not wait until I had a nifty devise to start a compost heap.  I got the smallest little fencers at Home Depot and they turned out to be plenty tall to keep my four-legged friend out of it.  Good for me!  I feel much better about myself not throwing away all of our kitchen waste.  Hopefully it doesn't smell too bad.  

Turns out, despite most of my plants in the garden looking pretty good and healthy- I am overrun by clover!  I feel like my soil must have been contaminated with clover seed!  I am pretty overwhelmed because they are so small, it is impossible to weed them efficiently.  I've already devoted many hours to pulling them out but they come back so fast.  I'm not really sure if they're harmful or not, so that keeps me from losing sleep.  Also, I have a thin layer of moss growing, which I'm also hoping is not harmful.

My soil is cracking in some places, even though it is moist.  I feel like I need some good earthworms, but every time I try to pick some up when I'm out on a walk- I get too squeamish- yuck.  Also, I laid out my soaker hose today.  All in all, things are still looking pretty good!

Box lizard

At first I thought it was a coincidence that I saw this lizard every time I used my ugly hose-hideaway box...  but now I realize it's his house and I see him every day, hanging out in the top part where I keep my gloves and trowel.  At least I hope he will eat all the black widows that might be crawling in my gloves.  And I definitely can't get rid of the box now!

Sprouts!

Yay! I have sprouts!  I've probably had them for a few days, but I didn't notice because they were so small.  But this morning I noticed that I had TONS of spinach and swiss chard sprouts and then when I looked closer, I noticed there is at least one baby sprout for EVERY single plant!  Also there were some little clover sprouts and I don't know how they got in there, but I plucked them and ate them.  I need to thin out a lot of the sprouts, but I tried to today and they mostly just broke, so (after I ate the ones I'd already pinched) I decided I'm going to have to wait until they are a little stronger to thin them out- maybe in a few days.  

Sadly, I'm pretty sure that I don't have a green thumb because while the spinach came up everywhere, it was much thicker on the side that Wendy planted then the side that I planted, so... I'm lame somehow but it's ok.  

I also went to the Grovetown Farm & Garden Center and asked what I should use for mulch, since my friend Rich advised me that gardens in the south need mulch to retain water.  The guy at the store said to use a bale of hay and threw one in my trunk, which seemed great at the time.  But when I got home, I realized I'm going to have messy pieces of hay in the trunk for a really long time.  I'll probably throw it on after my sprouts get a bit bigger.  

Built & Planted

On Saturday, May 16th we built and planted the garden!  That night it got flooded and on Sunday, May 17th, little boys dug some of it up and ran around on it... But I'm still hopeful.  Sprouts may appear as early as the 25th- and I will keep it posted.