Goal Accomplished

Today, I was successful in meeting a goal I had set.

 

I had a huge pile of mulch that I had been spreading out among my garden beds all summer. The spreading was slow, and fairly irregular.

 

Initially, a dump truck full of mulch was unloaded near, but not in, my yard and perennial garden beds area.  Over the weeks and months, the pile seemed to become a fixture in the nearby pasture as I was moving it so slowly.

 

 I had decided to move the mulch a wheelbarrow full at a time.  I wanted some physical exercise and this was chore was a good option. Glenn offered many a time to scoop up the mulch with the tractor bucket and dump a bunch of mulch at one time, but I was also concerned about the well-being of my existing perennials.  I needed to carefully spread the mulch around and under each plant.  I did not want to crunch any of my plants by dumping bunches of mulch via the tractor bucket.

 

The task was slowed even more by weather.  Spreading mulch is a hard job, best done during the cool of the morning or the cool of the evening…never at mid-day.  Since my cool mornings were allocated to my walks, the evenings were the best choice.  But, of course, once the cool evening arrived, I was already exhausted from a day of various other chores.  My mulching, at the time, was low priority and kept being penciled in as a chore for the next day, then the next; thus, my rationalization for my slow going.

 

My goal had been set early.  The mulch pile had to be gone, totally gone, before the freezing temperatures of fall/winter arrived.  Once the weather changed and started to freeze, the mulch would freeze too and would be impossible to dig out of the pile, let alone spread it. And, it would also deteriorate some by the following spring.  This mulch is just too expensive to waste.  Besides, I had plenty of time.  I set this goal in June.

 

Today, I finally got all the mulch spread. 

 

I have to admit that I did cheat a bit toward the end of the day.  I was running out of daylight, I was running out of time as in season, and I was definitely running out of muscle.  I had already wheeled 6 loads early in the morning and my stamina was fading fast.  Six loads per day are pushing my physical limit.  I had at least 15 more loads to go. 

 

Since I was in an area where there were no plants, just the backside of the corncrib flower bed, I decided that Glenn could dump a bucket of mulch without plant damage.  Actually, two dumps were made.

weeding complete late September...finally looking cleaned-up rather than the normal jungle
90% of the extraneous vegetation was removed, mainly out-of-control Virginia Creeper and
lots and lots of invasive bamboo

dead plants trimmed, mulching complete
there are more perennial plants hiding under all that mulch...
come spring, I will have daffodils, peonies, irises and

Voila…mulching is complete for the season.  My goal attained.  

 

I was able to mulch about 30% of all my perennial beds this season.  Next spring, I will purchase another dump truck of mulch and continue where I left off.  After all, this is a never-ending gardening chore.  When 100% complete, the first of the mulch that was put down will have deteriorated and will be ready to be renewed.

 

 

But, for now, my gardens are ready for winter.

 

 

HIP HIP HOORAY!