Monday, September 22, 2008

Garden Toad

The main thing this farm is lacking is flower gardens. This morning I couldn't resist purchasing some nice and reasonably-priced fall-blooming perennials at Kmart: foxglove, asters, veronica, lavender and gaillardia.
Tonight I planted the flowers in a ring around the birdbath. That meant digging up the sod in the very hard, dry ground. I added a bit of well-aged horse manure from behind the loafing shed to enrich the planting area, watered it well, and spread a layer of cedar mulch.
During the process, I unearthed a little toad that had apparently been snuggled under the bricks. He was almost black, the color of the soil, and if he hadn't hopped into the grass I might not have seen him. Sorry to excavate your home, toad. I hope you find it improved with the flowers.

One thing is becoming obvious about flower gardens on the farm --the yard is so huge that to make any impact it is going to require a much larger scale planting than the cottage-garden approach I am used to! This little birdbath garden is laughably tiny.

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