don't get too excited

[majorcatfish]

nice looking garden spaces...
hijack..
seeing those photos with all those weeds in them, would spray 24d weed killer in them and maybe you can plant veggies in them next year....

 

[flowerbug]

nice looking garden spaces...
hijack..
seeing those photos with all those weeds in them, would spray 24d weed killer in them and maybe you can plant veggies in them next year....

no herbicides in the veggie gardens. 99% of what gets weeded is put back down as mulch so the worms have a nice snack. leaving a few select plants here or there. there's a few dozen different flowers, green manure plants or ground covers in there that i don't mind staying.

selectively weeding along the edges to further encourage low growing thyme ground cover, which is doing pretty well. the white varigated ground cover i don't like so that is being taken out and i'll continue with the low growing thyme instead. will take a few years to get the edges filled in.

the rest of it, strawberries and other things to eat and some flowers and probably an alfalfa plant here or there... going to need a good fence. deer love it in there too. they also drink out of the bird baths. i find fresh tracks and other signs almost every day now.

i may not finish weeding all of it this year. too busy this week and next week to get much done in there. we'll see what hoppens. *ribbet*

 

[flowerbug]

It looked so nice when it was all cleaned up. Too bad those darn weeds kept creeping back.

Mary

you should have seen what i did last year to dig all the sow-thistle out of there... i had to dig 1/2 that whole garden down to the clay subsoil and even into that to get all the roots out and since i didn't want to mix the nice topsoil and clay subsoil i had to keep it roughly separate... tons of organic matter i'd buried in there over the years i was able to dig up and mix around and that's why the garden is growing so many weeds so well now. i tried to get the whole thing replanted with strawberry plants, but they didn't get going well enough in time to help smother the weeds like they do in some of the other gardens. the oxalis has taken over instead. it's likely going to be a few years before i get it back into shape now. way too busy with other things now, but we'll see what happens.

 

[digitS']

Two difficult to pull weeds: sow thistle and oxalis.

Sow thistle breaks from its deep root, then regrows.

Oxalis, with its fragile leaves, does the same. @marshallsmyth had a special hatred (fear) of the plant. I think especially because of his greenhouse experience and because of their ability to grow in his shady California garden.

I bet lots of people tolerate them in their lawns and beds because of the cute oxalis leaves.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

Two difficult to pull weeds: sow thistle and oxalis.

Sow thistle breaks from its deep root, then regrows.

Oxalis, with its fragile leaves, does the same. @marshallsmyth had a special hatred (fear) of the plant. I think especially because of his greenhouse experience and because of their ability to grow in his shady California garden.

I bet lots of people tolerate them in their lawns and beds because of the cute oxalis leaves.

Steve

and they drop zillions of tiny seeds from those pods... they're very hard to get back under control. i've about got them taken care of inside the fenced gardens. just a few odd ones left to get out before they drop seeds and then just keep an eye on the pathways and places they've been before where some residual seeds/roots are left.

in the above pictured garden i should raze the whole thing and bury as much as i can to keep all those seeds from going someplace else. i may do that in the next few weeks if i get a chance. i have nightmares forming of all those seeds getting blown and washed around as that is a slope above another big area and those will sprout in the crushed limestone... eek...

how are things going with you lately?

 

[Zeedman]

@ninnymary

i'm sure it will be weeks yet before i finish this, but you're welcome to come visit any time to get your weeding fix in:

Ouch. Been there, done that, when a wet year kept me from weeding the low end of the garden. I'm still battling all of the weed seed built up from that year... with my main plot being fallow this year, I should finally make some progress.

Two difficult to pull weeds: sow thistle and oxalis.

Sow thistle breaks from its deep root, then regrows.

Oxalis, with its fragile leaves, does the same. @marshallsmyth had a special hatred (fear) of the plant. I think especially because of his greenhouse experience and because of their ability to grow in his shady California garden.

I bet lots of people tolerate them in their lawns and beds because of the cute oxalis leaves.

Steve

Oxalis, thistle (several species), creeping jenny, and crabgrass are the perennial antagonists in my gardens. I let the gardens go fallow for a year if the thistle or creeping jenny get out of control. The oxalis is more annoying than anything else, it doesn't really hurt anything, but it just won't go away. Crabgrass, now - that's WAR!!!

 

[majorcatfish]

no i was talking about all these weeds..
just think of all the food you could grow......

 

[Nyboy]

Yes you are so worried about starving people, Why are you growing flowers ? Think of all the food you could be growing where you now have flowers. I know mother willn't like it but put on your big boy pants stand up to her and say There are so many people we can feed instead of flower gardening. You called me a greedy monkey, well do more.

 

[flowerbug]

no i was talking about all these weeds..
just think of all the food you could grow......

that's long gone by now (some 8-9yrs ago)... the chives in the foreground were edible. we hardly ever used them. still have some around.

http://www.anthive.com/project/redpatch/

since then i've gotten hundreds of lbs of strawberries, tomatoes, beans, turnips, radishes, garlic, onions, etc. from that garden. the deer, bunnies, groundhogs, chipperdoodles, skunks, tweeties, have gotten plenty too. i don't mind sharing, but the past few years they've made me want to put a fence around it. as it is the last priority in gardens for me currently it often fails Mom's approval.

today, picking and putting up tomatoes...

 

[digitS']

how are things going with you lately?

The big veggie garden must be the weediest, ever.

Deciding to expand into an area that had only grown weeds and received irrigation water may not have been so wise.

Still, most of the garden plants are growing and producing very well. What has mostly been accomplished is to pull weeds in the growing beds. Weeds in the paths were tilled. High temperatures -- the sprinklers were run often. Result: weeds grew rampant in the paths. Many tilled weeds survived - that dang purslane! I'm having trouble getting back with the tiller but the garden plants are encroaching so it won't fit in many of the paths.

Steve