The problem with free mulch day is the "day."

I can't complain about free mulch, but I can complain about the weather. Our town only offers mulch fee to residents one day a year. This year, it was 87 degrees during pick up time. It took me an hour in that heat to shovel the mulch into the bags and load up my car. Mostly it was old men and women picking it up (perhaps the young are wiser than the old.) I had room for more mulch, but no energy left to get it. Especially when it got up to 91 by the time I had to unload it. I suppose it could be worse. If it were raining, the mulch would have been a lot heavier and messier.

As you can see, I still need a lot more. When I go back, I'll have to pay for it, but it will still be cheaper than the store's mulch...and I'll know it's made from waste wood that would otherwise, well, go to waste. (But I'm not going back until it cools down and my son can help.)

Finally getting a little somewhere on the raised bed...and full disclosure of new purchases.

Well, here's the garden bed starting to take shape. Doesn't look like much, but it has exhausted me to get this far. Was going to make soup and do laundry tonight, but instead I will take some aspirin and go to my own bed. I put down newspaper under where the garden will be. It was no small task as even though there didn't seem to be a breeze, there was one about every 3 or 4 minutes. But, I got the paper down, put plastic over it and secured the plastic around the edges so (hopefully), nothing will be able to blow away.

The plastic extends about a foot beyond the garden. I'm going to mulch that area so the lawn guy can mow right over it and not have to use the edge trimmer around the bed. Hopefully, the plastic will last a few years and keep the grass from growing there. I will cut the plastic out from the bed itself once I get dirt to put in there. I'm hoping to have everything done but the dirt tomorrow, but at the rate I've been breaking down, that may be optimistic.

Full disclosure: I bought a new pair of garden gloves. Mine had such holes that it was rather fruitless to continue wearing them. Also, I'm thinking about purchasing a $59 pop-up roof thingie (they call it a tent, but it has no sides) at Ollies. I am planning to do a couple craft shows this summer. I wasn't going to bother with a tent as I'm not sure I'll be successful enough to continue, but the Ollies tent is a good deal and you can never count on anything being at Ollies from week to week. I doubt I will find a pop-up-type tent used...they only started making them recently and I am so old and decrepit, I need the convenience of a pop-up.

Free not-new mulch

Why buy and lug heavy bags of mulch if you don't have to? For the past few years, I have been mulching my garden with pine needles and/or chopped leaves. There is a short window of opportunity in the fall to rake up the long, soft needles that certain conifers shed annually. Often, you can find these already raked into neat piles at curbside for you by homeowners. The snow fell really, really early here so I didn't get all the needles I needed. However, the extremely heavy snowfall also took down a lot of pine branches. I've been gathering up the bows and throwing them on the garden...it may even be easier than using the needles. Either way, it is free, easy to lift and will eventually enrich the soil (particularly if your soil needs more acid). Chopped fall leaves don't look quite as attractive as the needles, but also work well. Just make sure the leaves are chopped up.