Gardening In The Rain

Turns out that gardening in the rain is really pretty fun. It's cooler, the bugs are less aggressive and it's easier to pull roots out of wet soil. Plus, the kids get to splash in the puddles and get really muddy, which is just about their favorite thing to do.

The photos below show what I accomplished this afternoon while my kids played.  Removed the overgrown, uneven and dead flowers (four large garbage bags full - MY BACK MY BACK).  Added two bags of flower bed soil and mixed it into what was already there.  Then used a watering can to spread two diluted gallons of organic liquid fertilizer.  Concluded by planting some pretty purple pansies.  A few of the liriape didn't survive the summer and will need to be replaced, but this bed is looking a lot better now.

Before

After

I also cleaned out two other flower beds and prepped them for new flowers.  One of them was full of lovely worms.  The other?  Grubs.  Many, many grubs.  Need to think about what to do there.  I've read that they are not necessarily detrimental, consuming dead organic matter and aerating the soil, that only 1 out of 10 grubs might be a problem.   We'll see.