outside my comfort zone

First things first. Thank you to all my readers, friends and random folk alike. Able-Bodied Boy (aka Manuel) has passed along all your encouragement and love, and I was shocked to hear so many random acquaintances and friends of friends of friends have been following along. Glad to see the blog has reached outside it's own "comfort zone"... certainly not a bad thing :) Thank you. Your kind words mean so much, and hearing how it's inspired you to try new things and act a little more sustainably makes me that much more eager to share my own journey.

And that leads to a couple of weekends ago. You know, that very weekend when you may have been talking about me around a fire with Able-Bodied Boy? Well, I was way outside my comfort zone.

I was getting sweaty out in the heat, growing things.

I may have mentioned my loathing of all things hot and humid.  And my lack of a green thumb. So yeah, combine those two and it made for an interesting weekend.

April is a great month for pruning and mulching and planting. Which is why I did it in mid-May. Yeah, procrastination abounds in my world. But at least I bought a mess of bulbs and tubers, planned a new garden or two, ordered a ton of mulch, and promptly watch Able-Bodied Boy drive away leaving me to do it all. HA! That's what I get... :)

So, in true Able-Bodied fashion, I forgot some of the BEFORE pictures. So you'll just have to imagine a jungle with trees. Literally. A jungle. With TREES. For any garden lacking a before shot.

AFTER: The Front Bushes. These two bushes were man-high and making the front walk nearly impassable. The bushes lost 60% of their weight, and all the weeds and trees in the rest of the bed were replaced by mulch.

The goodies from Van Bourgondien. I love they include a Garden Guide that tells you how/when to plant and care for all of the plants they sell.

BEFORE: The Mini Garden. Now housing weeds and the panels from an old fire pit.

MIDPOINT: The Mini Garden. Weeded! Pretty soon we will build a raised bed for some Cote d'Azur Pinks.

BEFORE: The Back Garden. All weeds and vines and wretchedness.

MID-POINT: The Back Garden. I tilled the clay-bound soil for an hour. Yay no more weeds!

AFTER: The Back Garden. I planted Windflowers and mulched the bed. Later, gas lines were being installed and they dug up half the bed :(

Random hanging basket and my spider plants recovering from a winter of abuse.

AFTER: The Lily Garden. Weeded and mulched!

AFTER: The Bulb Garden. Weeded, mulched and Periwinkle roots planted

And the best for last.... the blackberries are berrying!!! We should have a FABULOUS crop of them starting in July.

Some of the thousands of blackberries :)

What do you have growing?

Much Love,
Able-Bodied Girl