Welcome To The Jungle - Random Thoughts While Weeding.

I find myself having to stop, midway through weeding the gardens for the thousandth time, and remind myself that this is the time of year that I dream about in January - hot, humid, and green.  And yet, when I am in the midst of it I am too hot and it is too humid and way too green!  The corn is about 4 feet over my head, the beans are stringing all over the place, the peas are getting totally lost amid all the weeds, my flower gardens are horribly neglected and the sweet potato vine has taken on the personality of Audry II in Little Shop of Horrors.   The list of vegetables and flowers to try to save from the assault of the weeds gets forever longer and my back and shoulders become ever more sun burnt from being stooped over pulling weeds all day.  Thankfully, there are a few plots of vegetables - namely potatoes and squash that were mulched well with straw and newspaper that don't require much work other than to pull out the occasional errant weed, but the other seemingly endless beds of plants needing my attention are enough to make anyone wish for a sudden, yet definitive frost.

I often channel my grandmother when this sense of being completely overwhelmed strikes.  Her motto for cleaning her house - which was a large four square and a lot of space for an elderly lady to tackle - was to "clean one corner per day"  At the time she told me this I was probably about 15 and thought 'that's crazy - it would take weeks to get the house clean' not realizing at the time the wisdom of my grandma.  The hardest part is always starting.  A task too big will put just about anyone into procrastination mode, but to set the goal of cleaning just one corner....that is do-able and so you begin the task and before you realize it, the entire house is cleaned because you naturally progress from one corner to the next and so on.  I apply the same thought process to my gardens although it is modified slightly to  "save just one plant from the weeds". 

This particular mindset came about when I was about 8 months pregnant with kid number 4 and I couldn't bend over anymore to get at the weeds - those were long, hot days indeed - but plant by plant I continued to weed.  Some days I literally did save just one plant at a time before having to go inside and take a break, but these days I start with one plant and slowly drift from plant to plant to plant until I look around at the carnage of weeds around me. I was so proud of weeding my entire tomato patch the other day that I just sat on the dirt as though it were the nicest sand of the beach and basked for a few minutes - actually looking up at the sun and letting the front half of my body have some exposure to the light for once.

I think of my grandparents often when working in the garden.  Things my grandma used to say, poems she taught me, the lives they all lived.  One of the things that I most enjoy is knowing the favorite flowers of my grandparents  - for my Grandpa George it was Marigolds, for Grandma Syl it was Petunias and for Grandpa Dave it was Four o'clocks.  Grandma Vera had so many favorite flowers and grasses that I don't think she could ever pick just one.  I grow all these flowers in my garden and have found that most of them will self seed year after year, which gives the feeling that my grandparents are with me all the time.  That connection, however abstract it may be, is very comforting and I will find myself mentally talking with my grandparents periodically as I go about saving one plant or another from hostile takeover by weeds - I imagine what they would say about current events, the kids, my old house.  All of my grandparents were farmers in South Dakota and lived through the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression.  Imagining what those times were like - how difficult, how frightening - makes my own stress about current events slightly more bearable.

 Weed, weed, weed......drifting about the gardens thinking all the while.....it is incredibly hot right now and I know there are many that consider me crazy, but we don't have air conditioning and I like it that way.  Again, I think of my grandparents that lived (and enjoyed) their lives without the benefit of air conditioning. The trick is to cool the house off at night by opening all the windows and then closing them during the day to contain the cooler air.  It works well, no expensive air conditioning needed.  We have become a society of wimps - addicted to our televisions, iPhone and air conditioning.  There is a way to becoming energy independent....it's called 'not using it'.  Given the current state of society, it will never happen. 

Weed, weed, weed.....sorting through flowers and weeds and came across the season's first Preying Mantis.  Very small - only about the length of my little finger and very quick.  She doesn't realize yet that she is the top of the insect food chain.  I won't even dare to hurt her because she is too valuable for eating unwanted bugs.  I will perhaps move her to a more desired hunting location, but I wouldn't think of harming her.

The worst part to all this weeding is collecting and disposing of the weeds afterward.  Inevitably, while raking up all the weeds I will spot a few thousand more and it will take me another half hour before they are all raked up and thrown into the compost bin where they will be quickly broken down into something far more useful than the weeds they were.  The jungle still lives on, but at least one corner of it is now more under control.

Plant More, Weed Less

I realized the other day that I haven't written in some time simply because the weather has been too good.  My typical day is to go to work for 10 hours and then come home and drop to the ground and start pulling weeds.   Most of the vegetables are up and growing, but then so too are the weeds.  It rained this weekend and I am quite sure that all the carefully planted and cultivated vegetables grew about 3 inches, unfortunately, the weeds grew 6.

Weeds are the bane of every gardener's existence.   They outnumber us about 6 billion to one and they will survive and spread like wildfire despite our best attempts at controlling them. 

Some people like to use chemicals, but the effects of those chemicals are similar to the use of antibiotics on bacteria....resistance develops and we are left fighting bigger and meaner weeds that are harder to kill.  Not to mention the unwanted health effects such as cancer and other chronic debilitating diseases, or the environmental impacts like colony collapse disorder of bees, fish kills, song bird death, etc...yeah, I know, the government, EPA, and all the chemical producers swear up and down that it is safe to use, but I have seen a few too many farmers dying of cancer and I, personally, don't feel like being a guinea pig in the corporate money making machine that is agricultural chemical manufacturing.   All right, I will now attempt to step down off my soap box.

Some people "weed" the garden by hand or with a hoe or rake.  To some extent I will do this, but I only have so much time in a week - between working full time and raising five kids.... hand weeding isn't going to work for long.  It is, however, a great job for kids to do that are looking to earn a few extra dollars, or who get into trouble and need a little hard work to help clear their head.
 As much as I love growing food, I hate weeding vegetables and I will do whatever I can to spend less time weeding and more time growing and processing food or putzing in my flower garden, so I have started weeding even before the weeds come up (or the vegetables for that matter).  I weed once and then I am done. 

Now I have you wondering don't I?

It requires two fairly easy to come by items - straw and newspaper.

I was blessed with buying a farm that has a very old barn on it that is filled with exceptionally old, but functional straw.  Hopefully, by the time the barn is finally depleted of straw I will have some other source (or possibly my own) lined up, but for now I rely on straw that is probably about as old as I am.   Hay works well too as does grass clippings although sometimes with those two items they can re-sprout and create more problems than they are worth.

The newspapers have never been a problem to find, but it comes down to "know your neighbors" and either have them save up their papers or get to know your local neighborhood convenience store owner and have them give you all the old papers that didn't sell.  I have also periodically gone dumpster diving in the recycle bin for newspapers - especially Wall Street Journals - I figure if all those financial wizards on Wall Street can't improve life for us a little, at least the associated paper can be put to good use.

Armed with this newspaper, straw and a water hose I set out to eliminate all potential weeds from the cucumbers and squash before they even poke their heads through the soil.   The concept is extremely simple - cover all unplanted ground with a thick layer of newspaper, wet it down and cover it with straw and then wet that down.  The only reading that I ever do of a newspaper anymore happens as I lay them down in my garden and I contemplate how quickly the news becomes old  - how earthquakes and tsunamis get swept away in the revolutions that take over the middle east and then those are superseded by upcoming Presidential elections and tornadoes in the Midwest.  I see them all laid out in my garden and then I watch all the news just disappear under a matt of straw.  It is a beautiful thing.  To think that the media is keeping down the weeds in my garden may be the best compliment I am able to give them.

One hour and forty seven minutes later I am free from having to weed my cucumbers and squash for the rest of the summer and slowly the newspaper will break down and next spring I will simply till it into the soil as more organic matter.  One less area to weed leaves that much more time available to plant and harvest. 

Weed less, plant more.