The old fence is almost all removed, thanks to my son-in-law, my neighbor, and the contractor I hired. The weedy vegetation is all gone, thanks to my son-in-law, his father, my neighbor, and the contractor. The plants I want to save are mostly moved, some to my son-in-law’s house, some to temporary locations. I am expecting the fence contractor to come some time this week. There is the issue of the gate to the back yard. When I looked at how the land is, I saw how it was sloped in two directions. I’ve been trying to grade it out to the way I want it to be. It isn’t easy work, all this digging, but it feels good after a week of sitting in a classroom.

I’m hoping I’ve made enough progress for the contractor to understand where and how I want the gate to be. We’ll see. It isn’t easy communicating with contractors. Perhaps my exercise of using only seven words in a sentence will be helpful. “I want the gate here.” Five words. Easy to understand. The trouble is, contractors often say, “Oh, you don’t want it here.” My next door neighbor, who is also building a fence this year, said, “I like to remind them, last I checked, I am the one writing the check.” This neighbor told me though, “You’d better move this dirt so they can see what you want.” So, moving dirt it is.

It’s become very hot and dry, so I felt the need to water my plants before I started the digging. I was shocked when a lot, and I mean thousands, of what appeared to be little white flies flew up from the ground where I have cocoa mulch. On a closer look though, I saw that they look more like worms. Very tiny white worms that curl up and then jump. It’s the strangest thing I have seen in a long time. In fact, I’m sure I have never seen this before in all my gardening years. An hour’s research on the internet told me that these are larvae of a certain kind of fly, and that they have come in with that cocoa mulch. I liked the cocoa mulch at first, but I have seen that it is prone to mold, and now these creatures have appeared, so I will not use it again. Later in the year, I’m going back to bark mulch.

My tomatoes have set fruit, the pea pods are fully edible, and are almost finished, and the strawberries have started a second crop. The raspberries are plentiful, and the green beans are starting. Often I go out in the garden, and just stand there eating. It’s so convenient. Today I was going to be more civilized and bring the bowl of raspberries inside, but I thought I’d taste just one, and before I got to the back door, they were all gone. I’m going to plant another set of pea pods soon, so that I’ll have another crop by September. I have a lot of squash in one bed. I set up trellis for them to climb, but they prefer to lie on the ground. So it goes.

I hope you are growing what you want to grow in the garden of your life.