Trash into Treasure

I have a huge garden.  And I'm not exaggerating when I say HUGE!  It's 2000 square feet.  It's nearly as big as my entire house!  It's magnificent!

I hope I can create what I have envisioned in this little head of mine with the land.  I have purchased about 20 different kinds of seeds to plant.  Right now is the time to get the soil ready and prune back last year's growth on the perennials.  Or in my case, the last many years of growth as it hasn't been pruned in a very long time.  This is what my grapes (this shows only about 20% of them) looked like before I started pruning...

I did pull out a ton of dead stuff from this area last fall, but this is what the winter has left me with.  

So, I bought some decent loppers and went to town.  Pruning is essential for optimal fruit production.  I spent about 7 hours pruning all of the 75 feet or so of grape vines lining my yard.  Like I said, this is only about 15 feet of the total amount.  Here is the same area after pruning my side of the fence...I still have the back side to do when I get another warm day:

As you can imagine, I had a gazillion vines all over my garden floor.  I gathered up the good long ones and made something useful out of them:

 Grape Vine Wreaths!

It was a first for me, and this was so much fun compared to the earlier work of the day.  I felt all crafty.

Then I had some major fun after gathering some of the really dead vines and burning them.  Goodbye old dead things, I need some ash for my compost.  

 *this was a controlled bonfire in my fire pit, don't panic

Stay tuned for an Easter-themed grape vine wreath post!