Weeding

Now that I have all of the plants in the ground, the arduous process of weeding can begin. Since the beds are lined with newspaper on the bottom, this does help to keep the weeding in those areas to a minimum. The occasional grass pops through and the maple tree saplings are abundant at times, but so easy to yank out. What is proving to be a learning exercise is weeding the large tilled area. If you looked closely in the Green Arrow peas picture from the last post, you could see new wood fencing around that area. Here’s how it looked at the beginning of the week:

We decided to add fencing, in the same style as the raised beds, in order to keep the very curious family of rabbits out of my food. We love watching them hop through the backyard, but don’t love them chewing the green beans down to the quick. The plan is to surround the wooden pieces with chicken wire and add some posts inside the wood in order to support the wire. We just need a day that doesn’t feel like we are living on the surface of the sun in order to do so.

The cute little blue wagon in the shot was originally trash picked by my BIL, a master trash picker, for the Tomato to use in the garden. But, she’s about a year away of having true command over it. So, it has been claimed by me as the “weeding wagon.” It’s been a great little container for the weeds as I pull them out of the ground one by one. Hand pulling and getting to the roots is my preferred weeding method. I don’t like to spray and I’ve even been cautious with organic sprays this year since the Tomato is still nursing. So, I don this gorgeous hat that I got at Terrain and off I set into the sun for however long the morning nap is and I tear and toss and tear and toss.

I’ve been able to keep up with the little weeding in the beds just fine. But, this past week, I needed to tackle the large tilled bed. My three main pesky weeds are the grass that we turned over, some awful creeping vine of unknown origin and a plant that looks like it came out of the rainforest. The last one pops up out of nowhere and seems to grow at rapid overnight paces. It’s one that I need to get the trowel for in order to get it out at the roots. This is the weed for which a Hori Hori knife would be great. But, I am holding off on getting such a sharp knife until I get a potting shed put together and it can be put away up high and away from curious little hands.

So, before I tackled the space with my bare hands this week, it looked like this:

I was definitely in for some work in order to relieve the pumpkins, squash, watermelons and sunflowers from the nutrient grabbing weeds. It took a couple of mornings, but the end result was a good one.

Now, I just need to make my way down through the rest of the bed. After I remove all of the weeds, I am going to give some OMRI listed weed blocker paper a try. I found this at Home Depot last year.

You can lay it down in the garden, much like the lady pictured below. Then, when the season is over, you just till it under and it is biodegradable. Since it is OMRI listed, it is also safe for our organic gardening efforts.

I will probably get to this in the next week. I also need to turn over the extra bit of grass at the end of the tilled bed since we extended the space by three feet. Now that the crazy temperatures seem to be behind us for a bit, I’ll be able to get out and do a little more this weekend. Wish me luck in the battle against the weeds.