don't get too excited

[flowerbug]

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.

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!!!

now that i'm done with the fine weeding of the ground covers along the edges and out and away from most of the spring bulbs i can dig a big hole and bury most of the rest but it will mean sacrificing some of the strawberry plants i started in there last year. it won't happen this week or likely next but i've got to quarantine all of those oxalis seeds or i'm sunk... there's some crabgrass in there too, but not too much i can deal with that...

as for creeping jenny i use that as a groundcover in the low spot and it has finally filled in that area so i don't have quite so many weeds. it still gets some, but not nearly as many in that place as before. i have to weed it a few times a year. i'm encouraging it to grow along that edge further and up the slope and also letting strawberries grow over it so there is more than one layer of cover and the strawberries even give me something in return for the weeding effort. i'm just messing around with trying different things as cover and then seeing if strawberries will produce with that underneath. if the deer didn't keep munching off the strawberry plants i'd get a lot more from them...

 

[flowerbug]

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

i may have to resort to cardboard and mulch next year to smother things in there for a few years in there so i can keep up with the rest of the gardens i'm trying to work on until i can get back to this. i'm hoping the worms will eat all those tiny seeds and turn them into fertilizer... i can probably keep up with some more formal rows. i never really know what i'm going to get done recently until it happens.

purselane is an edible. i have tons of it in there. i don't mind it nearly as much as the oxalis. my big mistake was removing a lot of the other cover plants i had growing in there when i weeded it last year. thinking i was going to be able to get the strawberries to spread a lot more than they have and also being able to plant beans in there this year. both didn't happen.

we used to have a small tiller but this clay was murder on it and it broke a few times and we ended up giving it to a nephew who wanted to fix it again. i haven't tilled anything since i leveled the big garden to the NE about 8yrs ago. so all digging around here now happens by hand and shovel at a time. more often i scrape it and then rough up the area with a rake and then try to get some other cover growing before the weeds can come back. i'm failing this year, but the buckwheat is trying and i see some radish seeds i can use out there so some chances for cover to return and also leaving certain plants in place until i have something better to replace them with. hardly any rains the past several weeks. we need a good soaker.

 

[flowerbug]

wow, i'd forgotten about this thread.

i was just going to start another one about something else, but while i was heading by i thought i could update this first.

alas, without pictures...

it is coming along well, completely weeded back, a lot of bulbs moved and somewhat reshaped, but i still have to wait for the ground to settle before it will be considered stable enough to have the final grade done.

the edges are now all bare except for where i have creeping thymes going and i need to transplant a lot more to fill in empty spots.

i can weed it as it is in less than 1-2hrs for the all bare spots, the thymes take some time to weed through, but that is ok, it doesn't bother me to do it.

the lowest part of that garden that was a weed magnet is now smothering under some layers of cardboard.

a few radish sprouts are already coming up and doing well in there. i weed around them. i like the flowers. i should get it cover cropped this fall, but likely won't be able to do that - if i can hold it until next spring then i can plant it in dry beans, soup peas, onions. might do my garlic in there too since not much bothers it. we'll see what happens...

 

[YourRabbitGirl]

@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:

That looks lovely... With the right plants and flowers. that will be an eye candy in no time.. good luck!! happy planting..

 

[YourRabbitGirl]

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

Mary

yeah... I really hope we can do something about the weed... that's one of my major issues too. and it takes too much of my time cleaning.. I hope there is a faster way.

 

[flowerbug]

yeah... I really hope we can do something about the weed... that's one of my major issues too. and it takes too much of my time cleaning.. I hope there is a faster way.

this is what it looks like now that it has been cleaned up.

i use a stirrup hoe on it. the last time i was able to get in there wasn't too long ago with a warm spell we had so i could get the entire thing scraped with the hoe in just less than an hour and then for the next few days i was able to go and pick all the grasses out and use them to start an extra two buckets of worms inside here because i need more paper shredding munchers.

so now it is waiting for the spring flowers to come up. i dug up and moved a lot (several thousand bulbs) from this garden and some others because they weren't where i wanted them. and also to make it easier to take care of for the future. it will be a fun year as i can keep working along the edges to continue planting the creeping thymes and other choice flowering plants that will be accents and then the interior part i'll be able to do some peas and beans and onions.

because the edges surrounded by gravel isolate those edges from much of the way of weed or grass seeds they don't get horribly bad with weeds, but i still have to go through and carefully work on those at times. i get out the garden ground pillows and my weeding knife and go through all the creeping thyme bit by bit. a few hours here or there as OCD therapy in the sun and listening to the birds and windchimes and watching some clouds. it's all good for me. i don't really think of it as work as much as just being outside and meditation or thinking about whatever.

oh, and i also have a new plant to figure out. irish moss. i moved a chunk of it last fall from growing in the creeping thyme and i wanted to see if i could isolate it for part of it's own patch and once i have that done then i can also move chunks of that around and see how it works in different circumstances. always something fun to work on. when i was out weeding a few weeks ago i saw that it was growing and recovering ok from the move so it seems to be able to survive so far.

there are still some of the low growing bright red/pink dianthus plants here or there along the edges, but they are not ever going to be allowed to fill that entire space up again. they don't work well enough as a cover crop, but i'm ok with them being here or there.

 

[YourRabbitGirl]

this is what it looks like now that it has been cleaned up.

i use a stirrup hoe on it. the last time i was able to get in there wasn't too long ago with a warm spell we had so i could get the entire thing scraped with the hoe in just less than an hour and then for the next few days i was able to go and pick all the grasses out and use them to start an extra two buckets of worms inside here because i need more paper shredding munchers.

so now it is waiting for the spring flowers to come up. i dug up and moved a lot (several thousand bulbs) from this garden and some others because they weren't where i wanted them. and also to make it easier to take care of for the future. it will be a fun year as i can keep working along the edges to continue planting the creeping thymes and other choice flowering plants that will be accents and then the interior part i'll be able to do some peas and beans and onions.

because the edges surrounded by gravel isolate those edges from much of the way of weed or grass seeds they don't get horribly bad with weeds, but i still have to go through and carefully work on those at times. i get out the garden ground pillows and my weeding knife and go through all the creeping thyme bit by bit. a few hours here or there as OCD therapy in the sun and listening to the birds and windchimes and watching some clouds. it's all good for me. i don't really think of it as work as much as just being outside and meditation or thinking about whatever.

oh, and i also have a new plant to figure out. irish moss. i moved a chunk of it last fall from growing in the creeping thyme and i wanted to see if i could isolate it for part of it's own patch and once i have that done then i can also move chunks of that around and see how it works in different circumstances. always something fun to work on. when i was out weeding a few weeks ago i saw that it was growing and recovering ok from the move so it seems to be able to survive so far.

there are still some of the low growing bright red/pink dianthus plants here or there along the edges, but they are not ever going to be allowed to fill that entire space up again. they don't work well enough as a cover crop, but i'm ok with them being here or there.

That looks like a good start... I hope you'll get rid of that weed issues, Your topic is very interesting, I would like to keep track of this so I'll know what to do if it happens in my garden.

 

[flowerbug]

it was intentionally cover cropped for some years. birdsfoot trefoil is a good nitrogen fixer and spreads a lot of seeds. you don't want to use it where you don't want it to spread seeds though. like clovers it can spread easily.

i'd also had alfalfa planted in there but most of that was gone.

the north garden has been through a lot of changes through the years some pictures of it on each of these pages:

Garden Tasks | Anthive

Things of interest that have happened or gotten done around here...

www.anthive.com

Beans | Anthive

I really like beans...

www.anthive.com

Water | Anthive

Before you landscape, observe...

www.anthive.com

From Space or Up on the Roof | Anthive

Views from the past and...

www.anthive.com

if you want to look around at other stuff just start at the top

Anthive

Gardener

www.anthive.com

i've buried a lot of organic material under that garden in various places too which has come in good use the past year as i've dug most of it up and mixed it in with the top layer of soil. the subsoil though is still our heavy clay with some sand. the only reason that garden has nice topsoil is that we had to bring in sand and then topsoil because of the septic drain field out front. so the north garden is a sloped area going from up higher from the front to the subsoil level out back.

and if i need to move dirt around i sometimes use that as a temporary holding spot.