Digging in the dirt

That’s what I did for much of the afternoon. I started around noon by going out to mow some of the grass in the backyard. I also pulled out the line trimmer to clear out some of the edges, then came across our clothes hoist (a rotating clothes line, essentially) that was rendered nearly unusable by the bottlebrush shrub/tree growing into and over and around it. I eventually pulled out a pruning saw and clippers and lopped off several limbs. It’s less shady but the clothes hoist moves again and can be raised high enough that I don’t bang my head on it. There is also space to hang clothes again.

I eventually got to some potential garden beds that had been overrun by the weedy couch grass. That was the hard work of the day because some of it has grown into the concrete around the base of the house. I had to leave some bits because they were just too hard. But I cleared enough to plant the bell pepper seedlings and four tomato plants. I’m hoping to get good results after all the work I’ve put into the garden this year. I do have cherry and grape tomatoes starting to grow. Several are on the plant that survived through the winter and has grown into a monster of sorts. I also planted some lettuce recently and hope that will grow well. I had to put out iron pellets to get rid of the snails in the area. I have a red mustard plant growing beautifully since mid-winter but the snails kept eating the leaves and I’ve not been able to use it. I had to break off most of the leaves to find all the snails and still I found another one the next day. I think they are all gone now and the plant is growing rapidly. Lastly, my chillies are doing quite well so far. One is a black pearl chilli and looks really nice in its pot. I might have to use a thin stake soon to keep it upright but it should do well based on what I’m seeing so far. The habañero isn’t growing as fast as I’d like but it is improving…oh and I also planted some bean seedlings but they aren’t growing all that well so far. Only two of the four seem to have survived.

While looking around the garden I found that a wild vine of some sort has a flower that has bloomed. I’m not quite sure what the plant it but it’s growing near the area where we previously planted passionfruit vines (that never did anything). I’ll have to identify the flower tomorrow to see what we might expect next.

Note: I just looked up passionfruit flowers and that’s definitely what’s growing so wildly. Funny how it never grew much all the time we planted it. There are two more vines growing along the back wall near the cherry tomatoes.