Finally Finished Weeding the Blueberry Ring

Posted on by Julia

August 16, 2026

On August 12, I got up early and took a look at the vegetable garden. I noticed two butterflies in the garden.

This butterfly was on a pepper plant. I often see it flitting about. It seems to be the only one right now. I know butterflies can stay in the same area during their lifetime. Surprisingly, there are several species that migrate besides the monarch butterflies.

Here is other butterfly that I saw.

Carolina Stayr

I finished looking around the vegetable garden and making mental notes of what needed to be done. I was ready to conquer the last weeds in the blueberry ring. I carried a shovel and the wagon loaded with a dandelion weeder, gloves, and the kneeler.

I spent two and a half hours weeding the blueberry ring and I was finished!

View from Right Front
View from Left Front
View Looking Towards Left Front

The next step is to try and kill the fire ant nest at the edge of the blueberry ring. Once the fire ants are gone, I’ll put more cardboard around the outer edge of the ring. Bruce will use the tractor to cover the cardboard with a thick layer of chips from the pile o’ chips chipped from Pine Tree 3,

While weeding, I had several Hackberry Emperor butterflies land on me. They are known to be very friendly butterflies.

Hackberry Emperor on Cardboard Box

While weeding, I found myself under attack by no see ums. Bruce also found himself under attack. He put on mosquito spray and it stopped the attack. I followed suit and I won the attack.

While I was weeding, Bruce continued his hacking and slashing against the vegetation around the pig pen.

Here are some of the T-Post Bruce pulled out earlier.

A good days work in the cooler part of the day. Before we finished up, the temperature had started climbing. Hot and dripping with sweet, we were so grateful to have air conditioning waiting for us. The showers we took also helped us cool down.

Making lunch, I went to pick some herbs and found a skipper butterfly.

Silver-spotted Skipper

Looking out the window, I saw an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. Please excuse the blurriness of the picture.

After lunch, I worked on my current art project, “Dorrie in Sunflowers.”

Dorrie in Sunflowers

In the evening, it had somewhat cooled off, so we did our evening check of the orchard. On the way, to the orchard, Bruce showed off the removed tractor bucket.

The Bucket Looks Smaller Removed

Here’s the orchard picture. Not much had changed.

Bruce has been making various piles of vegetation from his reign of destruction.

You can just see the blueberry ring on the upper right, just below the pine tree branches.

I spotted a common buckeye.

I first thought this was a butterfly, but using Google it came back as a small moth. I was surprised by that, but looking at the pictures, I discovered it was a greater sweet potato webworm moth.

On the way back to the house, I stopped to pick cucumbers and tomatoes.

The sunset was beautiful. I loved the sun rays piercing through the clouds.

Top of Clouds
Bottom of Clouds
Combined Sunset

17 thoughts on “Finally Finished Weeding the Blueberry Ring”

  1. I think I am beginning to understand why you and Bruce work in the yard so much! Of course, you are younger than Randy and I are, so you probably have a lot more energy and willingness. 😃. I can and do still do a lot of manual labor, but I am far more inclined to pay someone else to do it now that we have found competent and reliable workers! It only took 20 of our 23 years here to do so! I am gaining a perspective of how much area you are taking care of.

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    1. Bruce kept saying he wanted 20 acres of mostly wooded land. He had no idea of the how much work that would be. Having grown up on a dairy farm, I knew how much work it could be. 😁I convinced him that Blackberry Homestead would be enough.

      Fortunately, Bruce now mostly agrees with me. He still thinks if we had another 5 acres of woods, we could have paths through it. Uh-huh. Trails are work as well. I’ve been through Federal and State parks where the paths weren’t kept up. Fortunately, he has enough to keep him busy.

      Bruce wants to do fun things, like playing with his tractor and mower. He wants to pay someone to deal with the plumbing, as the old pipes are rusting. He might deal with the electrical work himself as he likes that electrical work.

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      2. I love the butterflies and and other pollinators. I am willing to give up some plants parts to provide something for them to eat. Cabbage Whites are an exception since they are such a pest. I wouldn’t mid just a few, but it is never a few. Where, oh where are my predators! Tomato hornworms and army worms are my enemies as well!

        I originally thought we should raise bees, since I wasn’t seeing any European honey bees in my garden the first year. Since I wasn’t having any problems with pollination, I researched more about bees. I decided we didn’t need to raise honey bees. They tend to take over from native bees.

        We have plenty of native bees and my vegetable are being (pun) pollinated. I don’t want to reduce the number of native bees or even eliminate them from Blackberry Homestead. The native bees are more important to the ecosystem. There is a great book called “The Bees in Your Backyard” by Joseph S. Wilson and Olivia Messinger Carril.

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  5. Wow, how nice of you to weed the squirrel-feeding ring! I’m sure they and the robins will repay your kindness by eating all the berries. 😂

    In your minds, are you and Bruce on schedule to prepare the Homestead before winter? I know you’ve done a lot, but I wasn’t sure how much more you were hoping to do.

    Keep taking pictures of those beautiful sunsets!🌅

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    1. I hope to plant a fall crop of Asian greens, lettuce, turnips and collard. I also am hoping to get garlic and onions planted. I am going to give carrots another go. I’d like Bruce to use the tiller (tractor attachment) to make some beds for corn and potatoes.

      We want to move the pile of Bama dirt to an out of the way location so we can add more raised beds.

      I want another raised bed so we can put an arch between them. We need to determine a better support for tomatoes next spring. The new support structure needs to be built before tomatoes are planted.

      Spray peaches for peach leaf spot. This is done after peaches have lost their leaves.

      Prune all fruit trees in the orchard planted last year.

      Dig up and move dormant wild redbuds. Move Rose of Sharon.

      There’s more I’d like to get done, but this is a Starter list.

      Whew! 😓

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Published by Julia

I am a retired software solutions architect. I have been married to my husband, Bruce, for over forty years. We went full-time RVing for 3.5 years and saw much of the United States. After deciding to stop RVing, we bought a ranch house halfway up a hill on five acres. After Bruce and I talked about names for our five acres, we settled on Blackberry Homestead as a homage to the wild blackberries on the hill. We are working on creating our homestead. I love cooking and enjoy sharing recipes. I am also an artist, and I’ll share my current projects. Gardening and reading are my favorite hobbies.