Burning the Weeds

We had let the garden become overgrown with weeds for long enough.

A couple of reasons why this happened:

1. I had basically left the entire garden in the care of my husband – but he had begun to have severe back issues – a scan showed pretty much all of his spine had herniated discs and unsurprisingly he sometimes had sciatica issues (been there, done that, not pleasant).
2. During the last couple of years, whilst I had made some effort with the garden during the winter months to prune, during the summer months I didn’t like going out due to the entire mosquito population making a bee-line for me whenever I ventured forth.

So, by January 2025, I was dismayed to find that the garden had turned into a wilderness.  Also, some of our hedge had been destroyed by the hurricane winds of 2024 – there was a lot of work to be done!

However, I have a particular way of doing things and my husband has his own way – he likes to leave, shall we say, metal pieces of ‘art’ in the garden…  Simply combining our efforts to clean up the garden wasn’t going to work for me because his metal ‘artwork’ would encroach on my areas. 

So, I came to him with an agreement, that we would each have our own portion of the garden to tend and if he agreed that certain areas of the garden were 100% mine, e.g. for the purpose of creating a kitchen garden and flowerbeds, then as a thank you I would remove the weeds from his areas of the garden and help tidy up overall.

The agreement having been made, I created a pile of rocks, as if to claim my side of the land.

So, during the last week of January and first week of February I cleared some of my side and most of his side of the Spanish needle and brambles.  Feeling the burn on the backs of my thighs – I’m going to call this garden yoga – LOL.

And then my husband, in turn, removed a piece of ‘art’ – a holely (not holy) boat from my area.  But unfortunately for him, he ran roughshod over my pile of rocks (which could have been moved) and this broke one of the wheels of the trailer of the boat which cost him many hours trying to mend… 

The rocks were repositioned.

After a day, he gave up on fixing the broken wheel.

Over the next couple of months, I diligently continued pulling up the weeds and putting them in piles; I began ordering fruit trees and other shrubs that I wanted in my garden and when they arrived they were planted within days; next we began trimming back the overgrown areas and tidying up the rubbish whilst systematically burning the weeds and deadwood as we went; we also emptied the swimming pool (WIP); then we created an outdoor sitting/dining area; next on the agenda is creating the flower beds; and then ultimately the aim is to become as self-sufficient as possible from our kitchen garden and indoor micro greens. 

Despite having made no effort to plant any seeds – my garden now has beautiful blue flowers all over it.