"Winterizing" The Garden

I know that you are supposed to trim back your garden for winter. Knowing and doing are the problem! So, this morning it was on my list to go cut back the plants. I was also going to spray the Round Up. This is my version of weeding. The garden is too big and when I let the weeds go to this extent, I just can't face hand weeding! So I spray and then weed that which doesn't die or those plants too close to a "good" plant to risk spraying!

Right after breakfast I went out with the best intentions. The Round Up container said to spray on a warm sunny day. It was 24 degrees when I got up this morning! It was sunny but only in the low 40s, now, so I put aside the Round Up for later in the afternoon.

It was time to spray the peach trees for peach leaf curl. This is terrible peach disease that manifests itself in curled up leaves and not many peaches. A few years ago it killed a young peach tree. I had never seen it kill a tree before, so I try to spray in the winter like I'm supposed to. We have looked at many stores to find the fungicide to mix and put in our sprayer, but have had to settle for the kind premixed in a spray bottle. It takes a lot of finger squeezing and a wet finger to try to coat our two trees. They are getting tall, so I have to spray up in the air and hope the whole tree is saturated.

Then I got out the Black and Decker trimmer. We use this a lot and have two batteries to switch them out and keep going. I also got the loppers for the branches too big for the trimmer.





In addition to the regular winter trimming, I have to trim where the bushes have started to encroach on the garden "art". I love little garden art pieces to place around and surprise you. I would love to have a huge garden with benches and large sculptures and a maze, but I settle for a few pieces here and there. I don't have any garden gnomes, but I am open for just about anything else.




After I trimmed a few of the larger bushes, I noticed that the warm winter really has them confused. Some of them are already starting to bud out. I hope this does not bode ill for our fruit crop this year. I am hoping for quite a few apples and want to make blackberry jam for the first time in three years. It is sure to freeze again and that can destroy a crop.

An hour later my arms are aching and I have no more grip in my hands. When did I get so old and weak? I used to be able to work for hours and now I want to go in and fix a cup of tea. Fortunately Lee came out and pulled out the plants I couldn't get out. Then he raked up the cuttings and took them to start a new burn pile. Neverending.

I tried to get the battery out to recharge it. No can do. I will have to get Lee to do that, too. I used to be adamant about being able to do everything myself. I blame Women's Lib for this attitude. Now I want Lee to do the heavy, hard or unpleasant things. And I am glad he is willing and able to help me! Where is that tea?