First Four Hours. Much Accomplished.

Here's my first report of my four hours in the garden.

13 minutes hoe potatoes. "The potatoes don't look like they have very many weeds," I said to myself, "Maybe I can skip that this week."  But my better conscious said, "NO." Because my better conscious knows those are the thoughts that have lead me to overwhelm in the garden.  If I skip this week, it will be that much harder next week.  So off I went to hoe.
 

1 hour 15 minutes move compost bin.  This was a project of major blockage because it involves multiple steps and they all have seemed too overwhelming.  I need to move this black compost bin (with weeds on top) over to the side of the house.
 

But first I must move this pile of brush somewhere.
 

Then, the solar dryer can move to where the compost bin was, moving it out of my main view of the garden, and I can sink the second compost digester (when I get the holes drilled in it) into the ground.
 

First I moved the brush to Emilia's yard under the lilac bush.  Then I pulled out the bin from the old location and harvested the compost.  It was quite good compost.
 

That compost was spread in the front bed to support the hardy kiwi, currants and chives.
 

Now the solar dryer fits snugly in this corner.
 

The digester will be planted in front, leaving me room to maneuver the solar dryer around it.  One overwhelming task completed!
 

45 minutes empty and sift one compost bin, shuffling the extra off to new bin.  Harvested two wheelbarrows full of compost. Once I set in the new bin, I emptied the bin nearest it into my compost sifter and then poured the not yet fully composted bits into the new bin.  The compost was spread on the long bed in Emilia's yard, preparing for me to double dig it.
 

45 minutes weed two beds.  These two beds could be growing some carbon crops for compost.  But first I must weed before I can double dig.
 

I used the fork to loosen the soil and then pulled out all the weeds by hand.

Et voila!  Two weeded beds.  It's hard to tell from this picture where the beds begin and end, but I can tell in real life.
 

Here's a picture of the nasturtium, peas and asparagus bed.
 

I make compost using a "cold compost" method--the pile never really heats up.  This means that any seeds in the mix are most likely still viable.  Let me tell you, tomato seeds love to grow.  This is my strawberry bed, but that plant taking up the left hand side of the photo is a sneaky little tomato that has popped up.  If I could get them to do this in May, I could transplant them and harvest free tomatoes.  But they spring up in July, too late to produce anything.  So I pull them and return them to the compost bin.


4 minutes harvest peas.  My pea harvest has mostly been a bust.  I didn't water them at a critical stage and many of them stopped producing.  Still, here is a smattering.

8 minutes put things away, clean tools.  When I'm good, I brush off all my tools with a wire brush and then dip the tools in the sand/oil box I have in the shed to keep them in good working condition. I did this today.

Total time today:  three hours, ten minutes.  Good work.