Weeding again..

You may recall that Sunday I was concerned about fencing.  I originally wanted to work with what I had, but it was clear that the existing fencing wasn't going to work.  So what's a girl to do?

She goes to the local unnamed hardware big box hardware store of doom to pick up what she needs... right?  Well, apparently the UNBBHSOD was out of fencing.  Seriously, they are out of fencing.  They had one roll that was the wrong height and 1 roll of deer netting left.  No landscaping cloth of any kind, no fencing, no hose sprayers, practically no hoses... well, no lots of things!  One of the guys who ripped some wood for me to build up my potato boxes said that between people doing "projects" (yes, he used air quotes) and factories shut down during the pandemic, they are running out of all sorts of things like lumber, fencing, piping, you name it.  If there's a home project or DIY thing, people are running in to pick up odd things.

It's funny, I had noticed the lumber was lower than usual inventory, but it hadn't really registered with me until he said that.  I was happy they had a 2x4x8 to rip into 2' pieces so I could raise the boxes from 12" to 16" because, as I said to my potatoes, I'm greedy for potatoes this year.

So with no fencing available (yet), I turned to another round of weeding the ever invasive mugwort, mint, and who knows what else is growing.  Sunday I was just dejected at how a couple of good rainstorms, that we absolutely needed, could bring everything back so quickly. The only way to fix it was to take my shovel, turn over the ground, and pull more and more roots from the loosened soil.

I won't lie, it's hard work, but the place feels like there is breathing space again.  Of course, I also unearthed a colony of mini ants, so I'll have to set some borax traps to get rid of them.  I also discovered the shell of a squash vine borer, so this afternoon will be looking up how to get rid of those jerks.  My poor squash crop has suffered enough!

The other necessity for the day was building a couple of support cages for the eggplant.  See, this is the beauty of PVC, I have all the pieces already.

Of course, startling "Snaky," the little garter snake that hangs out protecting my garden from frogs and things, did elicit a bit of a scream with an apology.

It's a little boring to have to line up and organize all the cut pieces to find what I needed, but before long, the eggplants have been caged.  The big payoff was discovering a baby eggplant growing!

That brought a squee of excitement!

I am excited about eggplant and the squash is beginning to flower. As I build and start to trellis them, I will examine them to see they are male and female flowers to ensure pollination for fruit, but for now, seeing flowers after all the strife my poor squash have been through this year is a good sign.

As I hauled another wagon full of weeds to the scrub pile today, I did write a poem in my head:

Red Wagon

I measure my work by the wagon load

digging and filling each load,

hauling the unwanted survivors 

to another part of 

the world

where the unwanted 

seems to reside

with the help of

a rusty, red wagon.