GrandpaâÂÂs Garden is a collection of hints and tips to help you get more enjoyment out of your garden. Grandpa in his native habitat - the garden. Suggested Grandpa's Garden Articles While Removing the Bermuda Grass Runners They followed the 'sweet spot' in the black, decomposing straw on top of the ground. My Shovel Felt Heavy Yesterday I looked to see if mud was caked on the blade but it was clean. I've never noticed it being heavy before so I wondered why. Bad News On the Home Front Today The ground has been frozen for a couple weeks and the cats have found easy digging on my compost rich garden mounds. They leave their deposits under a little pile of dirt so I can easily go along and remove them, but it's not a warm fuzzy feeling to add to my spring planting pleasure. The Double Row of Beets The answer is yes, but I couldn't find it. It may have gotten too brittle from all the sun exposure and I didn't save it. After All These Years I'm Going To Have to Start Learning My fifth planting of corn is short, skinny and thin, with small five inches ears. I think the soil has been depleted of nitrogen. Use a Machete To Harvest in the Fall Stand facing what you want to cut and swing the machete in X's in front of you. It slices the stems instead of hitting them head on and makes twice as many cuts as my old way. The Smell of Burning Leaves Burn season isn't even over yet and our local yokals are at it again. I can't believe we are not all on the same page when it comes to burning leaves. November Is a Good Time To Get Garden Pathways Mulched Leaves are plentiful this time of year so that's what I use. They stay in the low spots, which my pathways are, so l don't need to continually rake them back. Soaking The Soil With a mud ball there is no root tearing, friction or abrasion and they don't even know they were moved until they meet the new neighbors. . Having An Abundance Of Functioning Neurons May Not be Conducive to a Joyful Gardening Experience I let some of mine rest so that I don't over think things. The requirements of the real world, to act after acknowledgment of a problem, do not apply in your garden. The Most Important Thing You Can Do I worked it down about 8" into the soil in a plot that got rich, black and fluffy. It looked like such loose ground that I decided to plant potatoes in it because they would be so easy to harvest. Flowers in the Veggie Garden I used to think of them as eye candy, then I realized that their vibrant colors probably attract more pollinators to the area than the standard yellows and whites of the veggies. Hollyhocks and snapdragons blossom all summer. More Gardening Articles