What a beautiful garden.

Look great! That's an impressive patch.

Thanks ladies. This has an easier year so far as far as rain goes, plus my granddaughter has been helping me so I can have more time to help my family.

It looks awesome Larry. That is a nice size yard too.
kim

Blue ribbon for you!

Kim, thanks. The lawn seems to be getting larger every year. The lawn is just over an acre, but I have another garden about the same size as this one and 5 more beds about the size as the watermelon bed. I try to have every bed set up to where I can drive my pickup right up next to the bed to unload mulch and compost, but it sure makes mowing more of a challenge.

Larry

Beautiful garden and yard. And I am jealous of all your trees, Larry.

Mowing a challenge? Oh yes, I know exactly what you mean! For us (or rather me since DH travels all over), the yard mowing isn't so bad - it's all the other mowing I do. Around the shop, greenhouse, storage barn, windbreak trees, round bales and square bales, and where the equipment is parked. The only place I can use the tractor and bushhog is from the pasture gate to the road out front and north to the road, and the bar ditches. I've about decided to go get an extra fence charger and run hot wire to keep the cows out of the hay and trees and then let them keep all the rest grazed down! Daddy used to open the front and back gates of our yard and let the cows graze their way through. Our house sat up in the pasture. Sure hated to clean up after them!

Sorry about hijacking your posting.

Mary

Larry, It looks fantastic!

I know what you mean about the garden being about as good as it is going to look. My tomato plants are starting to yellow too, and the grasshoppers are eating everything else, and I have decided I'm just not even going to worry about it. I keep telling myself to relax and let it go because we're in extreme drought here and nothing looks all that good here (except for the yards of people who have wells and can water their lawns all they want until the well runs dry).

My garden doesn't look as good this year in June as it did last June, but it has been very productive. I will be spending at least half of every day for the rest of the week canning, and that's how I start losing control of the grassy weeds----it rains a little like it did this morning, I'm tied up in the kitchen canning for days on end, and the grass sprouts, grows and takes over in no time at all. I find myself shocked around the beginning of July every year when I suddenly realize that the grass was taking over the garden while I was in the kitchen canning. You'd think I'd be expecting it every year, but I always think that I've done such a great job keeping it weeded so far that it will miraculously sit there weed-free for a few weeks while I am preoccupied with canning. Sadly, it doesn't work that way.

I worry about you working so hard to take care of all your relatives who are ill, and I hope you are remembering to take care of yourself too. I also hope all of them are doing as well as can be expected.

Mary, For smany years I did most of the mowing and edging because my husband was working, during those years, in his PD's detective division and was on call most of the time. I don't know how I kept up with it all, especially since we have a bunch of buildings, too, to mow around. Straight mowing is easy compared to having to mow around a bunch of buildings and fence lines and then go back with the string trimmer and do all the edging. After he moved to a different division that did not require all those hours on call, he took over most of the mowing and weed-eating chores. It made such a difference in my life because it left me more time for gardening, so we expanded from one fenced garden area that we had back then to the four we have now. Clearly, I am fated to spend as much time as possible outdoors, but at least I get to spend it maintaining the garden instead of the yard.

Dawn