Savage attack weeding... I believe i have been over this before, but since nothing around here is labeled and organized it would be easier to just state it again.
You are basically going on a week killing frenzy, a botanical cleanse so to speak, where the things you don't want growing in the garden are removed (lets call them weeds), which gives more space and less competition of light and nutrients to the plants you want to thrive (your food producers).
Get them out of there... attack a region with vigor and just around the time you think you are getting no where step back and see what you have done... you are doing it. That's life in a nutshell... apply it across the board.
But remember the dangers of savage attack weeding... you are kicked up into a higher gear and you are on a roll and in your frenzy you remove a good garden plant. Don't worry, this happens to the best of us from time to time... there will be setbacks.
Watch weeing around the peas however... i find it better to pinch off the green of the weed sometimes. If you got lazy and fell behind on your weeding you might find a large weed hidden in your pea rows... if you pull that weed out there is a real good chance that the pea roots are intertwined with the weed roots so removing one often removes the other, and as peas get larger they have a lot of green matter exposed to the dehydrating sun and air and will not tolerate this root damage well. That's why it is a real good idea to stay on the pea weeding early.
Generally you want to try and get the weed's whole root system out by perhaps inserting a trowel into the ground to loosen the soil a bit where the weed is located. Attacking small weeds early and constantly is the real key to productive gardening. As i have said before it keeps you in the game. Weed always in short constant spurts... you stay on task with your head above water. Weeds are like bad debt, if they get out of control they own your destiny and cast a negative shadow on your operation which can lead to depression, anxiety and failure complexes. Constant short bursts of weeding keeps the task manageable... Stay on your weeding and you are in control, your positive energy is reinforced leading to euphoria, giddiness and bouts of random song.
I know... lets do a sports analogy. You are the team coach... but as they say you can't teach scoring, it's just something natural athletes have. Your job as a coach is to put your players in a position to succeed. The good news is that you have a garden full of all star athletes... you did buy good quality heritage seeds right? Please don't tell me you bought rouge seeds at a corporate chain grocery store. If you did you can still amend this fatal brain freeze by correcting this fiasco and getting good seeds.
Get the right seeds for your climate too... as i learned last year i am in a prime tomato and bean climate, and with some serious soil amending (adding sand to the clay) i hope to excel further in the root vegetable category.
Take your tomato for example... a heritage bred tomato is a pure delicacy where as a corporate bred tomato (bred for long shelf life) is a tasteless thick skinned insult to the pallet. You need to ask yourself what plant you want to to put effort into nourishing. In fact if you don't have good tomatoes started by now just go get some starts at a fine nursery. It will cost a bit, but i don't think at this level of agricultural production cost is our real goal here... it has more to to with access to good food, and re-enforcing to yourself and those around you what is actually possible. As they say, "a kid that grows a carrot eats that carrot", and for all of our bizarre paranoid over protective story lines we have with our youth today, this is an essential lesson.. it's also fun, positive and hands on.
I did some pretty solid weeding at the house garden this weekend, i also put up a pea lattice (a mesh for the peas to grow up). This garden has really been served well with the over wintering crops. Not sure i ever really got the over wintering garden concept, but I think it has been taught to me finally. In fact i had to clip off a few flowers that were forming on some of the red onions... i have heard that you don't want them to go to seed but rather put energy into the onion. Apparently onions are bi-annual meaning it takes 2 years to go from seed to seed... i wonder how big that onion is under the soil? You know you have done a good thing with the garden if you are up at midnight pondering your garden... it might be an eating onion right now. A master gardener i am probably not, but as i have learned in the music recording industry, sometimes knowing too much can interfere with doing things right. I know it sounds odd from a scholarly perspective, but man gardening is about doing, being involved and making mistakes... that's how you learn. Don't be afraid of what you don't know... find out through trial and error.
I also noticed today the i have a bunch of cilantro coming up near where last years cilantro went to seed. This is excellent news... i also saw a few young tomatoes and some potatoes coming up on a volunteer basis. I transplanted the potatoes so they are all in one region and this year and i plan on trying this trick. Never done it before but it kind of seems like a no-brain er. Could you buy potatoes cheaper than buying the lumber and the soil?... perhaps, but remember as a consumer you are trained to buy satisfaction... i rest my case.
I have really bought into space this year as well... give the damn plants space... In fact i came back from the community garden tonight and my neighbour a few doors down was planting his newly installed planter box... i noticed his lettuce was planted too densely and reprimanded him accordingly... and then i offered him a broccoli plant that i started indoors from seed a month ago.. he was pretty happy, so we went over what might grow well in his heavily shaded garden box. I was thinking carrots, but he had no carrot seeds, so i said no problem and went and got some fine "purple haze" carrot seeds. I planted them for him trying to emphasize the idea of spacing the seeds to give the plants room to grow. I sensed mild intimidation but general happiness, so i took the liberty of leaning on him a bit more to get some water on the plot A.S.A.P. I might give him a tomato next week if he passes his watering test... clearly i can set him up with garlic next year which is an excellent crop for the young budding gardener. Garlic being one of the "over wintering crops" is an excellent tool to keep the gardener engaged year round. Progress feeds progress of course and it's a pretty hard crop to screw up.
Plant, water, observe, weed and converse with your local gardening community, and work hard to welcome others into the concept of gardening. Even if you have to volunteer your time to help somebody, who is perhaps a bit timid, into the field of gardening do it. If you can share and foster the joy of growing food in your community then that's a better community you get to live in.
You are basically going on a week killing frenzy, a botanical cleanse so to speak, where the things you don't want growing in the garden are removed (lets call them weeds), which gives more space and less competition of light and nutrients to the plants you want to thrive (your food producers).
Get them out of there... attack a region with vigor and just around the time you think you are getting no where step back and see what you have done... you are doing it. That's life in a nutshell... apply it across the board.
But remember the dangers of savage attack weeding... you are kicked up into a higher gear and you are on a roll and in your frenzy you remove a good garden plant. Don't worry, this happens to the best of us from time to time... there will be setbacks.
Watch weeing around the peas however... i find it better to pinch off the green of the weed sometimes. If you got lazy and fell behind on your weeding you might find a large weed hidden in your pea rows... if you pull that weed out there is a real good chance that the pea roots are intertwined with the weed roots so removing one often removes the other, and as peas get larger they have a lot of green matter exposed to the dehydrating sun and air and will not tolerate this root damage well. That's why it is a real good idea to stay on the pea weeding early.
Generally you want to try and get the weed's whole root system out by perhaps inserting a trowel into the ground to loosen the soil a bit where the weed is located. Attacking small weeds early and constantly is the real key to productive gardening. As i have said before it keeps you in the game. Weed always in short constant spurts... you stay on task with your head above water. Weeds are like bad debt, if they get out of control they own your destiny and cast a negative shadow on your operation which can lead to depression, anxiety and failure complexes. Constant short bursts of weeding keeps the task manageable... Stay on your weeding and you are in control, your positive energy is reinforced leading to euphoria, giddiness and bouts of random song.
I know... lets do a sports analogy. You are the team coach... but as they say you can't teach scoring, it's just something natural athletes have. Your job as a coach is to put your players in a position to succeed. The good news is that you have a garden full of all star athletes... you did buy good quality heritage seeds right? Please don't tell me you bought rouge seeds at a corporate chain grocery store. If you did you can still amend this fatal brain freeze by correcting this fiasco and getting good seeds.
Get the right seeds for your climate too... as i learned last year i am in a prime tomato and bean climate, and with some serious soil amending (adding sand to the clay) i hope to excel further in the root vegetable category.
Take your tomato for example... a heritage bred tomato is a pure delicacy where as a corporate bred tomato (bred for long shelf life) is a tasteless thick skinned insult to the pallet. You need to ask yourself what plant you want to to put effort into nourishing. In fact if you don't have good tomatoes started by now just go get some starts at a fine nursery. It will cost a bit, but i don't think at this level of agricultural production cost is our real goal here... it has more to to with access to good food, and re-enforcing to yourself and those around you what is actually possible. As they say, "a kid that grows a carrot eats that carrot", and for all of our bizarre paranoid over protective story lines we have with our youth today, this is an essential lesson.. it's also fun, positive and hands on.
I did some pretty solid weeding at the house garden this weekend, i also put up a pea lattice (a mesh for the peas to grow up). This garden has really been served well with the over wintering crops. Not sure i ever really got the over wintering garden concept, but I think it has been taught to me finally. In fact i had to clip off a few flowers that were forming on some of the red onions... i have heard that you don't want them to go to seed but rather put energy into the onion. Apparently onions are bi-annual meaning it takes 2 years to go from seed to seed... i wonder how big that onion is under the soil? You know you have done a good thing with the garden if you are up at midnight pondering your garden... it might be an eating onion right now. A master gardener i am probably not, but as i have learned in the music recording industry, sometimes knowing too much can interfere with doing things right. I know it sounds odd from a scholarly perspective, but man gardening is about doing, being involved and making mistakes... that's how you learn. Don't be afraid of what you don't know... find out through trial and error.
I also noticed today the i have a bunch of cilantro coming up near where last years cilantro went to seed. This is excellent news... i also saw a few young tomatoes and some potatoes coming up on a volunteer basis. I transplanted the potatoes so they are all in one region and this year and i plan on trying this trick. Never done it before but it kind of seems like a no-brain er. Could you buy potatoes cheaper than buying the lumber and the soil?... perhaps, but remember as a consumer you are trained to buy satisfaction... i rest my case.
I have really bought into space this year as well... give the damn plants space... In fact i came back from the community garden tonight and my neighbour a few doors down was planting his newly installed planter box... i noticed his lettuce was planted too densely and reprimanded him accordingly... and then i offered him a broccoli plant that i started indoors from seed a month ago.. he was pretty happy, so we went over what might grow well in his heavily shaded garden box. I was thinking carrots, but he had no carrot seeds, so i said no problem and went and got some fine "purple haze" carrot seeds. I planted them for him trying to emphasize the idea of spacing the seeds to give the plants room to grow. I sensed mild intimidation but general happiness, so i took the liberty of leaning on him a bit more to get some water on the plot A.S.A.P. I might give him a tomato next week if he passes his watering test... clearly i can set him up with garlic next year which is an excellent crop for the young budding gardener. Garlic being one of the "over wintering crops" is an excellent tool to keep the gardener engaged year round. Progress feeds progress of course and it's a pretty hard crop to screw up.
Plant, water, observe, weed and converse with your local gardening community, and work hard to welcome others into the concept of gardening. Even if you have to volunteer your time to help somebody, who is perhaps a bit timid, into the field of gardening do it. If you can share and foster the joy of growing food in your community then that's a better community you get to live in.
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