Weeds and Seedlings
Jun 16th, 2009 Posted in Chris and Lise, Garden Blogs | Comments Off
This weekend, we hit the garden ready to weed. This was a good thing as we had plenty of volunteers to contend with, mostly tiny grass seedlings that love to spring up in colonies between carrot rows, in lettuce beds, and magically around the edges of everything. We duly weeded, clearing maybe 2/3 of our plot of grass and lambs quarters. I’m tolerating a few things, as always. The clammy groundcherry would require me to dig up entire beds to remove it, something I’m not willing to do. And there is a bladderwort that I’m letting be there, just because. Red clover can stay if it wants but not the wild mustard which survives (imo) by impersonating radishes….
So what’s looking good this week — seedlings mostly. I had to reseed the pickling cukes but they’re up now, along with the long green cucumbers, the pattypan squashes and the beans. The carrots are growing in well too, now that they’re finally established.
Carrot tops
The tomatoes, peppers and basil that we put in last week are basically just sitting there. I think it was a bit cool for them here in the early going. But I’m hopeful that all this rain will help.
Then there are the crops that we’ve already been getting: The mesclun is still giving us lots of salads and greens but some of the plants, esp arugula, are starting to shoot to seed. The first crop of radish is about gone by but we have a second crop coming along. And in the last week, we’ve been able to enjoy small portions of snap peas which despite the puny size of the momma plants are still delicious and tasty. I have a feeling they’d be taller if we’d fed them more but what the hey. I wasn’t expecting much so anything we get is bonus.
And that’s it for the garden this week. Overall, I think our plants are a bit small compared to other people’s and I think the difference is manure. Most gardeners, I’ve noticed, seem to really pile on the manure. We didn’t and our plants are definitely less lush. I guess we’ll have to invest in a few extra buckets of the brown stuff and look into some of the other feeding methods so we can get our plants up to par, as it were.
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