What Did You Do In The Garden?

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I weeded the herb garden. I have not really done anything with it for the last few years. This is the one I called the old herb garden. The new one I decided to let go this year and just mow it. The weeds on the the neighbors side just too much to fight. Mostly the one I kept has flowers. I transplanted some things from the other one, thyme, hollyhocks, prairie sunflowers, oregano, bee balm.

 

[flowerbug]

I planted a little bit of spinach and lettuce today. I need more seed, but have the box ready for tomorrow. I am going to plant some mustard, spinach and bok choy tomorrow. I restarted some tomato and pepper seeds. I just do not like how my tomatoes look, but that’s the story every year for me. I am overwhelmed when I go out in the garden. Do I want to rent a tiller and ask DS to till? Do I want to turn it by hand? I am going to get a truckload of compost and I think I am going to just work in sections each day. Instead of looking at the big whole thing, just divide in seconds like 4 x 10 or so and turn by hand, get the weeds out and get the compost on, and then on to the next, and as it warms up and I get things hardened, I can plant the early stuff and keep getting the rest of the garden ready. I have rabbit manure spread on the garden in different areas, and I turned some under and the ground is just loaded with worms. I think I will spread more over the whole garden and then it will be getting rained on and soaking in until I get to each section. I am making one compost bin and only rabbit manure, leaves from last year and garden trimming things are going in. Hopefully, it will be ready by fall.

it is easy to be overwhelmed and to feel like it is too much when you have a lot of garden space.

i take it a garden space at a time as we have about an acre of gardens and decorations to keep after and there is always something to do - never really enough time to get all the projects done i'd like. your idea of picking a certain size area and doing that is good, but also i can appreciate the idea of just mowing some space that you can't get to. downsizing may be the right answer if you feel like it is too much to keep after.

i have a large space i'd love to plant fully this year, but there's a good chance i won't be able to get to it all done so Mom will keep mowing whatever i can't get weeded and planted. the soil is coming along so well so i hate to not have it in production, but i have a lot of other projects that will keep me busy too. i just have to prioritize and keep getting ready for the warmer weather plantings. luckily we don't do a lot of early cool weather planting so i don't have to do much for the other gardens that are ready. i can focus on another large garden space that we decided to work on next. it may take me another week or two to finish it up.

 

[flowerbug]

I weeded the herb garden. I have not really done anything with it for the last few years. This is the one I called the old herb garden. The new one I decided to let go this year and just mow it. The weeds on the the neighbors side just too much to fight. Mostly the one I kept has flowers. I transplanted some things from the other one, thyme, hollyhocks, prairie sunflowers, oregano, bee balm.

mints and thymes can be ok when mowed if you raise the cutting height of the mower. i don't recommend this approach for a more formal garden though as if you have not cleaned the mower well you could be just adding more weed seeds to that garden area.

when a garden is bordered by neighbors who don't do much with an edge you pretty much have to put down a decent depth root barrier and also something which keeps their mowing from spraying crud into your garden. we have a mulching mower so it mostly keeps things right in place where they are mowed, but sometimes it can still scatter things a bit further than the width of the mower deck.

i may not really like the looks of the black plasting edging we have in some places, but it does help keep a few things under control.

i'm so glad i got started last year on removing the edge of irises we had growing along a pathway because there were so many weeds and issues with that edge and i want to move the pathway over several feet, but that is a major project so i have to do it in stages as i get time for it. i'll save several days of weeding this season alone just being able to now go along there and skim it quickly instead of having to try to work around the irises.

 

[Smart Red]

looked at it from far away. . .
son wants to redo whole yard since big truck traffic has made serious ruts in much of it. his suggestion is to reseed with clover rather than grass.
1. its hardy
2 it grows to only 3-4 inches needing little mowing
3. it looks lawn-green
4. ???
what do yall think of the idea?

when i told son i was getting engaged his first question was, does he like to mow? eliminating mowing as much as possible is something son is going for.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

mints and thymes can be ok when mowed if you raise the cutting height of the mower. i don't recommend this approach for a more formal garden though as if you have not cleaned the mower well you could be just adding more weed seeds to that garden area.

We made a big mistake and composted the grass clippings and we spread this weed from the neighbor everywhere. It does pull up easy, but it spreads everywhere. I do not know the name, but tall with purple flowers. All the mulching I have done with straw ended up sprouting, but this year no home grown compost and no fresh straw and I think eventually I will get ahead of some of this.

 

[digitS']

@Gardening with Rabbits , this weed?

Dead nettle

It sure isn't dead in its invasive habits. Spading fork and removal of roots ...

Along with bind weed and quack grass ... part of the reason I resist perennials with their uncompetitive tolerance for weeds and my dismay at a perennial bed's continual need for weeding.

Steve

 

[seedcorn]

when i told son i was getting engaged his first question was, does he like to mow? eliminating mowing as much as possible is something son is going for.

Congrats. Man after my own heart-least amount of mowing is great idea.

 

[flowerbug]

looked at it from far away. . .
son wants to redo whole yard since big truck traffic has made serious ruts in much of it. his suggestion is to reseed with clover rather than grass.
1. its hardy
2 it grows to only 3-4 inches needing little mowing
3. it looks lawn-green
4. ???
what do yall think of the idea?

when i told son i was getting engaged his first question was, does he like to mow? eliminating mowing as much as possible is something son is going for.

we have almost gotten rid of all of the lawn/fields that were here. we mow a space to the south but it isn't even our property, but that is a Mom thing because she doesn't like the look of it when it grows tall and would scatter weed seeds into the gardens.

when the farm sprayers took out the edge of that we reseeded it with clover. the deer love it... i knew that, but it is --> over there so i don't mind them being there. it's when they come further in to the gardens here that they are eating things i'd rather not have eaten. no chance of getting a good fence up along that edge any time soon either.

the problem with clover is that it does die back in the hot time of the season if it doesn't get watered.

i'm firmly in favor of the mutt lawn. just mow whatever is there and it will select from among the plants that are there for what will live. i like the small birdsfoot trefoil plants, but once it comes in it can take over. i like the flowers, don't mind the rest of it. same with yarrows, clovers, plantains, dandelions, the more diversity i can get going the better. like in the middle of summer when the weather is hotter and dry the yarrows will still be somewhat green. the only problem there is that we both react badly to yarrow when it is cut so mowing it is very hard to breath. we're removing yarrow from some perennial gardens because we can't tolerate it. it is not an easy plant to get rid of (when you have several hundred square feet).

mints and thymes are both good plants for sprawling and keeping short. i have some thyme that only grows a few inches tall and it smells so good when i'm sitting there weeding it. i finally got an edge of it going after a few seasons and i weeded it last fall and looking at it this past spring the only weeds i have to deal with in it are along the edges. that was a lot of work to get established because of a very prolific small grass that drops seeds really quick (the grass is already got seeds on it this year).

i just extended that edge with the same plant by chopping up part of one that was growing further down. it will take a few years to get that part established, but it's ok, i enjoy it. we tried some white varigated plants in that space for a few years but they just couldn't survive the clay. i'm not sure the thyme will do great there, but i can add some better soil to the top along the edges of the plants as they try to grow and see how that goes. the strawberry plants that wander through that space (the deer eat those but not the thyme) sometimes will root into it eventually.

i tried to take some pictures the other day, but they really didn't turn out very well so i'll have to try again sometime... hopefully it will flower this season.

 

[Ridgerunner]

looked at it from far away. . .
son wants to redo whole yard since big truck traffic has made serious ruts in much of it. his suggestion is to reseed with clover rather than grass.
1. its hardy
2 it grows to only 3-4 inches needing little mowing
3. it looks lawn-green
4. ???
what do yall think of the idea?

when i told son i was getting engaged his first question was, does he like to mow? eliminating mowing as much as possible is something son is going for.

Welcome back, Red. You have been missed. And congratulations.

Not sure what variety of clover you are talking about or how it might grow in your climate. The clover I'm most familiar with is red clover grown for hay. That gets much taller than 4" so not close to the same thing. The kinds of questions I'd ask are how often do you need to mow it and how will it look after it is mowed? Will it still be green or will it look like brown stems until it regrows? Can you use a mulching mower on it or will you need to bag it? Clover is known to be a great food for several different critters, will it attract critters you don't want? Not just deer, maybe rodents? Will it crowd out weeds and grasses so you don't have to mow anyway to keep them under control?

Personally I'd be reluctant until I saw an example of where it has worked elsewhere.

 

[flowerbug]

yesterday's weeding, went through the revamped strawberry patch, some weeds i missed when i did it last year. mostly dandelion roots to remove. my large somewhat dull knife works ok for prying those out. and some sow thistle roots to track down. i'm sure there are still some bits of root in there i'll still need to find. that was a half hour, then i weeded a small rock garden (easier to move the rocks aside to get all the roots out and then put the rocks back. then weeded another small patch of thyme that had some weeds starting. then did part of a pathway and a rock mulched area (clearing small blue flowered stuff that i can't stand the smell of when i pull it, makes my nose run bad - an invasive weed that came in with a blue flowered wild-flower seed mix, bad mistake - it is a blue flowered plant - i just don't like it). then i emptied stuff for Mom onto the weed pile and called it enough. not bad for an hour or two outside. was way too windy to work in other spots, got cold, came in.