Fall Cleaning (in the garden)

          We have had lots of heat and lots of rain this summer so the garden has been left to itself and has grown into a nightmare.  Seriously, it was super bad (you'll see in the picture below). : )  But it hasn't been as hot in the last week or so, so we had an itch to get some garden beds cleaned up and ready to plant again.
          So, here is a before picture of some of the garden beds... They were cut down short with the weed-eater earlier this week, but before you see this I hope you're sitting down (you probably are).. it's that bad!  ; )

     
              Here goes..

        Okay, well I'm glad that's over.. and now I get the bravery award for showing you that.  ; )  Told you it was bad.. I wasn't kidding!

        Anywho, we started the afternoon off with a friendly family competition to see who could get their garden bed cleaned out first.  You know, turning a task into a game and/or a competition makes the task more fun and it even gets the job done quicker!  : )  We decided to play our "game" boys vs. girls.  The boys, Jesse Jr. and Dad, had the bed closest to the camera (with the tallest grass on one end).  It was our tomato garden in the spring and has wire around that tall grass.  The girls, Charity and I, had the middle bed in the picture.  You can't see it, but there is wire laid over top of that middle bed (to prevent rodents from digging in it).  So these two beds were a little more complicated than just a normal tilling, but we managed to complete them both in a little over 10 minutes.  **Whisper**->(Us girls won, just so you know.) ; )

And here is what it looked like when we were complete and already working on the third bed.

Weeds now heaped up next to beds in a garbage can.

          But us girls did have an advantage I must say.  I used a tool that the boys did not have for cleaning their bed.  A "hand tiller" maybe it could be called.  ?  I'm sure it has a name, but I just don't know what it is.

So, here is our "secret weapon" (the hand tiller) and suggested tools (gloves) for clearing a garden bed.  We used this pretty much for the rest of the beds.

      We had the littler girls, Faith and Hope, working on the third bed while we were having our competition, but they weren't too good at pulling the roots and so they pretty much gave up.  : (  We gave them this bed for a reason though.  Daddy wanted them to find some surprises in this bed.  (The third bed was full of Sweet Potato Vines.)  Once we finished our first two beds, Dad and the big kids didn't mind doing the 3rd bed and finding lots of Sweet Potatoes.  : )  Harvesting is so much fun! : D  God blessed us with a bounty of Sweet Potatoes today!

 Charity and Jesse Jr. enjoyed filling a crate with the potatoes and spraying them clean. They can't wait for me to make Sweet Potato Casserole now!  : )  By the looks of this picture, I'm not sure they will wait!  He He

    We did some other beds today also and had some more exciting finds, but I'll have to share that with you on another post. ; )  Hope you enjoyed!

      Please share some things about Sweet Potatoes or cleaning up your garden beds.  We'd love to hear from you!  : )