It was beautiful outside, so I did some garden maintenance in the front yard. I first cut down and removed all the dead Sunflowers and Zinnias. Our dog Kelly accompanied me in my chores as our neighbor’s kid kept trying to call her. Kelly pretty much ignored them, because she was busy cutting the grass.

I tried to pull as many weeds as I can and cleaned up the Swiss Chard, Rudbeckia and Mums. This was worth two 5-gallon containers of composting materials.

My mom wanted to pull up the Dahlias in the front planting area, which hasn’t been divided in I can’t remember how many years. This was no easy task because the tubers were huge (like grocery potatoes) and they were intertwined with out White Birch tree’s roots. They were also Dutch Iris and Columbine that we wanted to save, so I had to carefully dig these up and put them aside, until we can replant. It started getting dark, so I could not finish. Those Dahlia tubers were really stuck in the Birch’s root, and I’ll have to tackle this later.

I also collected all the plant labels that were in the planting beds. I washed the dirt off of them and place them away for safe-keeping. Which reminds me, I want to get some black plant labels for my seedlings.

Now, I have a blister from cutting the Sunflower and Zinnia into small compostable pieces. and my back is sore. Gosh, I feel old… hehe :)