Graham and I got outside and got started on the yard yesterday. The temperature must have reached 16 or 17 Celsius, and we were out in our t-shirts. He started to rake the lawn but quickly was overwhelmed by how long it was going to take. He went over to his mum’s and picked up her lawn mover, which has a “de-thatcher” attachment. And a bag. So he went over the lawn with it, and now it’s in good shape, and dog-poop free.
When Graham returned from his mum’s, he had a plastic garbage bag containing a bunch of splittings from her garden. She was working on moving her pond out back, and divided some of her plants for me to have. There was hens & chicks, what looked like snow-in-summer maybe, and cinquefoil, although I’m not 100% sure. I didn’t know where I wanted to put them yet, so I potted them up, placed them close to the house and gave them some water. Hope they do okay!
While he was doing that, I worked on clearing up the two little beds on either corner of the back deck, one of which I hadn’t noticed before because a lot of grass had invaded. I pulled out the weeds and leaves and garbage and turned over the soil. Not sure what a few of the plants are in the south mini-patch, but there was also some peppermint and a few little strawberries, both of which were on my wish-list for this year. In the north mini-patch, there were a couple of what look to me like Rudbeckia and maybe a mini-iris of some kind, hard to tell. There were also a bunch of gross grubs. I didn’t used to find grubs so disturbing, but yesterday I set one on the deck, and it used arms to crawl away! I’d never seen that before. Ugh. I hate to admit it, but I think we’re going to have to nuke the lawn with something to get rid of those grubs. The weeds are pretty brutal, too. I can handle weeds, but those grubs just give me shivers.
Once those spots were looking good, I hauled all my pots and tools and stuff out of the garage and organized everything into my work bench (an old wicker dresser my roommate handed over to me). I screwed my terra cotta pot hooks onto the fence, as well as our bottle opener.
Next I’ll tackle the pile of leaves/compost/twigs/branches at the other side of the house, and the front bed, which I want to reshape. I might wait for the hostas out there to peek up first, though.
I’m anxious to get some lettuce and other cold-weather crops started outside soon. Can’t wait for the tomatoes to start appearing!
