Railroading the Weeds

I wanted to spread mulch yesterday -- to smell the hemlock (which makes a yard seem so organized and well tended) and keep the weeds at bay in the beds I've cleared. But there is a bigger priority back behind the barn: the vegetable garden, where weeds love the lack of competition in the spring. If I don't tackle it now, they'll be a foot high when I'm ready to plant in a few weeks. I know because this has happened the past two years in a row.

I have four can't-do-without weeding tools:

1) A hori hori knife. This thing readily removes weeds and rocks. While I've never timed myself (because that would be weird), I'm sure this thing cuts hours off weeding time:


2) A tubtrug. In this, I carry the weeds to the compost pile. I have about five of them and use them for any number of things. Max uses them to pick up pine cones from the yard. (I pay him $1 a bucket.) My friend Michelle uses hers for laundry. I purchase mine at the Gardener's Supply Company.



3) and 4) Gloves and a kneeling mat. These go without saying.

So I weeded Phase 1 of the vegetable beds yesterday. Satisfyingly so. We made this bed about three years ago. I've mulched it with wood chips and straw over the years, which we've just integrated into the bed, and the soil is rich and loose. I'll probably plant potatoes (soon) and corn in this section, with cukes and possibly squash and melons under the corn.



Once the weeks are pulled, I have a small, handheld electric tiller that I run through the top five or so inches of soil to discourage any other weeds from setting up shop there, like in this bed, Phase 2 of my spring weeding challenge:



Phase 3 is an overwhelming work in progress. It's a five-foot wide swath of thick, healthy grass between Phase 1 and Phase 2. I'd love to spray it with Roundup, but I'm sure that will somehow contribute to the honeybees' Colony Collapse Disorder. So we're going to do this the natural way:



I'm not sure we'll use this section this year. It may just be a work in progress.

At this point in the season, very early May, it's hard to have patience in terms of planting when your dirt is ready. I will likely put a few hearty spring seeds in soon -- peas, lettuce, beets. But everything else needs to wait until Memorial Day -- the when threat of frost is usually/finally over and the real gardening begins.

Walk Around the Yard

88 degrees yesterday...close to that again today...

This can't be good for the plants -- it's not summer yet. Seasonal temps are more like in the 60s, and we're supposed to return to that tomorrow. I even heard something about overnight temps in the 20s in a few days. So plants pushing their blooms due to the warm weather may be in for a bit of a shock.

Nevertheless, a walk around the yard finds some asparagus, blueberry buds, woodland daffodils, Autumn Joy sedum sprouts, the hens taking a dust bath, and a lazy dog:

Springing of Spring

April 25. Temps are supposed to hit near 80 today -- the first time this year we've seen such weather. I have a whole day of nothing ahead of me, which translates into a whole day of poking around the yard -- if that's what I feel like doing. And somehow, I think what I feel like doing may involve pansies.

So what's happening out back? I sprayed my apple tree yesterday with horticultural oil with the intent of killing off any scale on the tree (see above). I didn't really find scale on the apple tree, but I did find some (I think) on it's pollinator, a crab apple tree. I've lived on our homestead for nearly six years and have never sprayed the gnarly old Cortland tree. But neither have I eaten a nice apple from it. So this year, I got off my "organic apple" horse with the intent of enjoying the tree's fruits. It's just one of those things that needs a little help, I guess. From what I've heard at the greenhouse, no apple grower worth his/her salt can grow an edible apple in Vermont without some level of spraying.

So yesterday, on went the dormant oil -- to be applied before the buds pop. I thought I would be overcome by the fumes and toxicity of it, of course, so I armed myself with long clothes, sunglasses, and a bandanna around my mouth. But the spray didn't smell or kill me. It's just an oil, after all. Think of spray-on sunscreen.

The next application -- of a more organic pesticide (pyrethrum) that I think is derived from chrysanthemums -- gets sprayed on the day the tree drops its blossoms. I've heard that you can apply this spray every month or so, but I'm not sure I'm going to take it that far yet. Baby steps for me and this spraying business.

In other news: The garlic is about six inches high. The asparagus hasn't poked up yet. New shoots on my three roses. I wasn't able to save but two pepper plants from the Attack of the Family. And a few tomatoes have re-sprouted. I'm definitely going to be visiting a greenhouse for plants this year.

Question of the Day: To mulch or not to mulch yet? Is the ground warm enough? I read an advice column this morning that suggested you need to give the ground enough time to really thaw out before you mulch, or the mulch will insulate the cold. So I'm going to wait a few weeks. I still have plenty of beds to clean out anyway.

Question of the Day #2: When should I plant potatoes? I've acquired the seed potatoes and split them up. They're staying warm in the greenhouse, but I'm not sure when they should go in the ground. I've heard when the soil hits 50 degrees. How do you test that? A meat thermometer in the ground?

Funny how I've been experimenting in a garden for more than half my life, and I still have a ton of questions about it all. Maybe that's part of the appeal of it all. It's never boring and always challenging.

With that, out with this blog today and in with some warm and windy sunshine...