My Aching Hands!!!

I love to garden. I have carpal tunnel syndrome. The two don't mix. After my hair appointment yesterday I stopped by one of the big box stores to pick up some bedding plants and veggies to finish off my veggie garden. I spent over 3 hours digging, planting and pruning. I now have 3 tomato plants, 1 bush bean, 2 zucchini (why can't I ever remember how to spell that word?), 1 yellow crook neck squash, 1 bell pepper, a couple mini rows of lettuce planted along the back fence and mini rows of radishes between the other plants. It is pretty much an experiment because this area is on the north side of the house but in the summer it gets lots of sunshine. The sun isn't in it's summer, full over the head position yet so it is a little shadier than I would like right now. We shall see how it all turns out. You should have seen me last night out around my bedding and veggie plants with a flashlight at 10:00 looking for the evil slugs/snails. We have been infested with the little boogers and I have been methodically hand picking and squishing them to rid them from my garden. I swear to you one night I picked off over 200 of them! I've found where they like to nest and diligently try to eradicate them from my yard. I try to take it easy with the "non-toxic" snail bait cause we have our fur babies that roam the yard. Fortunately the veggie garden is gated so I don't have to worry as much about the bait in there.

I really, REALLY need to go outside and doing a little more clean up planting (um, moving around of plants) around the pond but I'm afraid my poor old arms, hands and back won't be able to take it. I was up half the night last night in pain . Why I didn't go to bed with my hand brace on is beyond me (mentalpause moment). It is supposed to rain this afternoon (thus the hurry to get my new plants in the ground yesterday). The back yard will smell incredible after the rain with the orange, lemon and lime trees in full bloom. We still have a few pieces of fruit to pull off of the orange and lemon trees. It will be hard to say goodbye to my fresh citrus for another year.