Mid-Summer Garden Clean-Up

My garden this year has been a rockstar. It had a rocky start and has had to tolerate several gardener-related missteps, but it's pulled through and really surprised us all.

But predictably, the heat and bugs have brought it down, and even though several things out there are still going strong (yay zinnias and melons!), it was in desperate need of a good mid-summer clean-up.

Before:

Our main to-do goals were to dead-head/gather seed heads from the zinnias, clean up the dried up and finished cukes and mini-pumpkin, tie up the monster tomatoes sprawled everywhere, weed the paths, and re-mulch where needed. I'm proud to say my kiddos were big helpers (especially Henry, who stuck with me until the whole job was done and it was lunch time).

Both kiddos gathered a brown lunch bag full of zinnea seed heads and made runs to the chicken coop with veggies we found past their prime, and Henry helped pick "bad bugs" off the plants, gather cucumbers, and he even helped distribute mulch.

After:

These 'after' photos have me laughing because we spent over two hours out there sweating and working and it doesn't actually look like that much got done! But truly, it is much better out there now, and it feels like the things that are holding on through the heat and infestations might stand a better chance now that we cleaned up a little!

Plus- it won't be long before those re-mulched, tidied up and newly vacated beds get another round of our attention for fall seed planting!