In this installment I headed back into the garden for another good day of busting my ass. One of the things I wanted to do was break down the last of the two ground level raised beds I had set up in the middle of the garden. This bed had some fig trees planted along with some strawberries. Problem is because of the neglect we subjected the garden to, grass and weeds were allowed to take over the garden. This shit needed to be cleared before proceeding since these plants were getting transplanted elsewhere. The last thing I wanted is to have errant weeds take the trip to any new planters with the desired plants so they can take over those just as well. I'm not going to cover the specifics of dismantling the actual raised bed as it was the same as the first one, pulling the sheet metal sides free then removing the posts from the ground. There was a problem though. Within the garden along with the weeds was a gigantic fire ant hill. These satanic fuckers were thousands deep when I broke up the dirt. They engulfed the areas of the garden, covering the dirt and even the plants, making removal of anything a little difficult. I had to take my time moving dirt away little by little and carefully pulling strawberries free one plant at a time. Since I had to do this careful work I decided to go ahead and start replanting the strawberries in their new homes. I had transplanted the fruit tree from the first raised bed to the half drum I had cut so the next thing for this drum planter was to put strawberries in it. The strawberry plants I pulled from the ant infested bed were transplanted one at a time into the fruit tree planter until I pretty much covered the surface area with strawberries. Even after filling the previous two planters with strawberries I still had plenty of plants left in the raised bed site. I had some extra dirt on hand available that I was able to use to fill up an extra recycling bin I had laying around. This bin went next to the other recycling bin that I currently have other strawberries planted in. This bin was on the porch until I moved it to a spot next to the dog kennel greenhouse. Once I pulled the remaining strawberries from the dirt I was actually able to make full coverage of the dirt in the recycling bin so now I have two recycling bins full of strawberries. Hopefully with proper care we'll have plenty of strawberries next year. With the strawberries cleared I moved on to the fig trees. Now the crazy thing is, these "trees" are really just part of one greater tree. A tree that was planted in the raised bed initially had sent out runners that took root sending another tree up next to the initial tree. I ended up having to cut the section of trunk that came up from the ground from the main tree and crossed over to the other tree. This section being cut allowed for the separation of the two trees without damaging the trees. With the trees separated I was able to work on uprooting each tree so I can free the overall tree from the ant infested dirt so I can set them aside prior to finishing the last stage of the clearing of the raised bed. I had to ensure that I preserve as much of the root system of each tree as I can so the trees won't go into shock too badly (hopefully). These trees will be transplanted into some more container planters to be moved to new spots somewhere in the garden at a later date. At least by planting these trees in container planters, I can move them wherever whenever I want to. If I don't like the spot that the planters are staged I can always move them to a better spot. Since fig trees typically get huge, they will have to be staged in spots in the garden where there will be plenty of clearance around each of them so they can grow. If not, I will have to trim them every year to keep them a specific size so they don't get out of hand growth-wise. I will probably have to clear other shit from the garden before I establish the final plots for these two planters when they're all done and ready. With the fig trees out of the way I was able to finish off the clearing of the remaining dirt from the raised bed. Even with the ant infestation since I wasn't trying to remove plants anymore and the fig trees' roots didn't get in the way, I was able to just start shoveling dirt. I ended up shoveling the dirt into some mushy low areas in the middle of the garden to try and fill the area with more dirt prior to dumping gravel down. Since the dirt was pretty much useless to us it only made sense to try and get some type of use of the dirt. What better use than filler material? I didn't completely fill in the areas I wanted to but I did get a good start. With the two raised beds gone I can now start focusing on my other plans, which was to remove the last regular ground level raised bed which was used for growing tomatoes and replace that with some raised beds along the fence line when the fence is put up along that corridor. Also the areas around the fig that's in the ground need to be cleared up. There's really only supposed to be the fig and a pear tree in that area. Everything else in that area is weeds and high grass. There was another ground level raised bed there but the boards disintegrated a long time ago and nothing has been planted there ever since. Once this area is cleared I can make more plans as to what to do with the area, up to and including spreading gravel all over the area. Little by little the garden continues to grow together.
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