I'm still in permaculture school and about to wrap up the course. I'm doing that, working full time, and looking after a baby and two large dogs. And a house where I no longer live.

So I haven't been doing much else. To include blogging.

To Be Continued ...

Look who's fruiting.

Today I reapplied mulch to their bed. A stinging insect moving too fast for me to identify objected and got me 2-4 times. The sting on my arm is a definitely, my face a probably, but the ones on my hand and ankle are only maybes.

While I was recovering from surgery, the 3 sisters garden ran its course. I got a huge yield of terrible ears of corn, a decent amount of acorn squash that I neglected, and 0 pea or bean plants.

My philosophy is that any near-0 input gardening that produces biomass is still a win. I got lots of corn stalks and squash vines along with the failed produce. So the soil wins, regardless.

An order from Prairie Moon came in under bad timing, so it took me 3 days to install the new pollinator garden.

The beds hadn't even been prepared yet so that was a hasty job of sheet mulching, which took all the unglossy cardboard I had plus all I could beg off the Wendy's.

The feed and seed store guy tried to sell me 60 bags of mulch for this. (I usually make my own but no time.) The mulch calculator told me 10 bags. The truth was more like 15 but I had a couple other spots that needed it, so I wound up with 20.

Lesson: look it up yourself.

Before, I did mow back that gorgeous Virginia buttonweed that is the majority of the ground cover, which was getting a little too thick. That makes two (2) mows this season. I don't want to ever go back to grass again.

The gigantic pumpkin plant was suffering in the heat, so I removed it.

The ironweed looks fantastic, with its deep purple blooms.

The corn will be ripe soon. I had meant to stagger plantings, but I'll only be doing second wave this week. Alas.

Liatris is crispy and done, but surprise, surprise, the oxeye is blooming! I did not expect this.

Something had been eating the pokeweed, but only some plants. And for some, it's eating lower leaves aga leaving higher ones intact.

And so is the pokeweed.

Once I got back to the car, I tog about leaving the dogs in the AC, grabbing my mask, and going back for the plants. But I was already exasperated from trying to handle the dogs, and my knee was flaring up. I was GROUCHY.

There will be another sale in the fall.

Love/hate cypress vines. They are gorgeous and the blooms are cute, but if I hadn't caught them in time, they'd have strangled the corn and the beautyberrys.

Every couple of days, I check them and redirect them, but they probably need relocating.

In the top image, some fox grape has got caught up in it. I'm getting wee baby fox grapes everywhere and now I've found a muscadine. I am conflicted about whether to keep, remove, or relocate.

Just

Have

Not

Been able to capture an image of the dramatic elegance of these corn stalks. Ever try to take a picture of a mountain. Yeah it's like that.