Saturday, September 7, 2013

Chapter 167...My Poor Garden And Repairing Our Driveway

One more final project and my poor pitiful garden from this summer.


Mike helped me mow the lawn the other day and he pointed up to a huge wasps nest.  I have never seen one this big.  It's amazing how I never heard them all sumer long.  They are right above our kitchen door:




Mike took care of it by hosing it down and then spraying it with wasp killer.  Hopefully they don't build a new nest.  Thankfully Mike did not get stung.  There were a lot of wasps in there.


Getting cleaned up for the next season.  Mike's daughter, Nicole, gave us a cage to sell at the store.  It has been sitting on the side of the shed all summer.  Mike and I cleaned it off and loaded it onto the trailer to take to the barn.  It's one step closer to the store:)




And for the really sad part.  A look and a recap of my garden.  Each spring Nicole and I get very excited about our new gardens going in.  This year was no different but it does not have a happy ending.  It was a late start to begin with because of the weather.  Finally I got it all planted and then we had a bad hail storm and lots of continuous rain.  Through July we had about 24 inches of rain above the norm.  Not enough sun and too much rain caused the tomatoes to blight so by the end of August I tore out all of the bad plants.  Some of the flowers did well, the basil grew really bug, and some of the purple bell peppers made it:





Just a couple of peppers:




My sweet pepper plant:




My basil really liked all the water but bugs got to the leaves:



Sweet herb which was supposed to be Stevia.  That did well:



And some Dahlias:



My strawberry plants.  They are still wild.  I gave up on them after I caught a raccoon in my garden:



A picture of our trees in August.  They do not look good.  There should be no brown yet and the trees are already dropping leaves:



That pretty much sums up my gardening year.  It did not go well.  I got some beans before the cows got to them.  I got about 10 cucumbers, 1 zucchini 2 yellow squash and some peppers.  It was a very sad year for gardening.




Mike and I found some blacktop repair to use on our damaged driveway.  This stuff is amazing:




Mike cleaning out the leaves and debris that is in the broken off section of our driveway:



We bought seven bags of the blacktop repair.  It is like a very solid mix of gravel and tar and it is very sticky.  We made a slit dow the middle of each bag.  Mike pouring the first bag into our hole:



Getting it filled:




Mike was going to use a tamper to tamp it down but he decided to use himself instead.  Of course he put his old tar sneakers on:



Shoveling the extra up to make it neat:



We got out holes filled and it should be safe for the winter:



That is all for now.  The next story. which will be soon, is about our pack up for our move to Florida.  We stripped every tool we could think of to take with us.  Our poor TN house is empty but we will need everything for this FL remodel.  It is a huge one!!!


I'll get you all caught up soon.

5 comments:

  1. That blacktop repair stuff looks more or less like cold mix we used at the state highway department. If you ever use some of that out in the road where you drive through it a lot, spread a little sand over it. You won't get any oil on your tires and it won't spread on the road.

    Have a safe trip!

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    1. Thank you. That is a great idea. BTW, I think that stuff is very cool:)

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  2. If you ever do get stun by a wasp, yellow jacket, bee.......anything immediately dab some Asorbine Jr. on it. Within 20 min you will not be able to find where you got hit. My husband got hit by a wood bee, nasty buggers, and within 5 minutes he felt no pain what so ever and in 20 no sign of where he got stung. I got hit by 10-11 yellow jackets right after than and in 20 min all was well. No redness, not pain, no nuthin'. Absorbine Jr is the best. Better than any other "remedy" I have ever used. Meat tenderizer? Pluuuuuzzzzeeee not even close. :-)

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  3. Don't feel bad about your garden. It's a common story this year, shared by MANY gardeners. =(

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    1. Thank you. It was a rough year for many gardeners. I feel especially bad for the farmers.

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