War of the Weeds
I actually had a whole day off yesterday, and I almost didn't know what to do with myself. I slept in (until 9:30!), I watched TV, and I tried to turn into as much of a vegetable as I could. But it was such a beautiful day, I couldn't help myself; I had to go outside and garden.
Every year I come to the same conclusion: I love how big my yard is, because it really gives me a lot of space to play with, but I hate it, because I never have any time to play in it. My pond needs a good cleaning; I tried to start doing that back in March and never finished. I thought for sure my frog was dead, killed off by all the leaves that have fallen in the pond and are slowly decomposing at the bottom, but yesterday I walked past the pond and heard a telltale "eep!" followed by a splash, alerting me that he has indeed survived another winter. I'm going to have to start calling him Wonder Frog.
Since it just rained a couple of days ago, I felt it behooved me to take advantage of the wet ground and start pulling weeds (in case you didn't know, it's much easier to pull weeds out of wet ground than dry ground). The main enemies in my garden are Pennsylvania smartweed, which is prolific but fairly easy to pull, and pokeweed, which isn't quite as ubiquitous, but has a HUGE tap root and stubbornly refuses to go. My arms are already sore from the strain of pulling, even in the soft, wet ground.
I did see the dreaded poison ivy, although only one plant, but that means I have to go get the chemicals to eradicate it. I know it'll never truly go away, especially since the neighbors over the fence have a whole poison ivy patch, but I will do what I must.
In the meantime, I have been coddling my seedlings, both the ones started indoors and those started outdoors. At this point, it's pretty hard to tell the seedlings from the weedlings, so if I'm not sure, I just leave it alone. I bought a few full-sized herbs to put in the herb garden. The hope is that if some of the more aggressive herbs take root, they'll fight my weed battles for me. I have already seen my pumpkins do well against the morning glory, so we shall see how the rest perform.
A large section of garden is now inundated with catnip, in which the cats love to roll around. Every once in a while, I see a large cat-shaped dent in the plants. Sometimes Itchy comes in for dinner stoned, and it's hilarious to watch him roll around, play with my foot, and act so incredibly not-Itchy. I'm not sure Scratchy really likes the catnip...either that, or he acts the same way whether he's stoned or not.
Hopefully it will rain again today so that my seedlings can get watered and I can do some more weed battling tomorrow or the day after.
2 Comments:
Surely there's a non-chemical alternative for getting rid of the poison ivy? Something from Whole Foods or maybe these guys - http://bluehouselife.com/index.php - ?
I worry about the kitties playing in your garden with herbicides!
Worry not! I wrote about this last year and how I had to balance my use of chemicals with my organic sensibilities. I had tried the organic way first (vinegar seems to be the most popular way), but to no avail.
Instead of spraying the whole vine, I clip the plant about an inch from the ground and paint the chemicals onto the stump. The triclopyr does its work pretty quickly, running all the way through the complex root system. This avoids drippy chemicals and poisoned kitties.
Our neighbors, however, have no qualms about using various herbicides on their lawns and gardens, and unfortunately the cats do run around in those yards and have come back with swollen, weepy eyes in the past. I've talked to the vet about it, and he says to try to keep them inside for a while until the swelling goes down. So far, this year, they haven't experienced that. Keep your fingers crossed.
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