Weeding PART 1: And All Of It's Joys ;)

Ah weeding... A topic we all wish wasn't a topic... And yet, I'll be dedicating several weeks to this topic!

Want to know a little secret? I'm actually growing to enjoy weeding my garden. Like... NOT in a "pining for weeding" kinda way... I still dread it ahead of time, but once I'm going, I just can't stop! It's like exercise! Annoying, sometimes painful, but for some reason you just keep going.

Today I just want to talk a bit about hand-weeding. Some of it's ins-and-outs, for those who may be first-timers.  I should probably disclaim here, that I didn't do any book-learnin' for this post. I am writing this just from green-thumb experience. So please feel free to correct anything you seem to know otherwise to! :)

WHAT IS A WEED?
 The simple answer I give my kids, is "A weed is any plant, that is growing in the wrong place". So, if you get little tomato sprouts from last year's fallen fruits, those are weeds. Not garden plants (those will never mature anyways FYI).  If it sprouted in the wrong spot, it's a weed. Grass in the lawn? Not a weed. Grass in the garden? BIG TIME weed! Thistles in the ditch? Not a weed. Thistles in the lawn? Weed. Clover in an open field? not a weed. Clover in lawn or garden? weed. You get the idea... :)

this weed comes from compost. it flowers before you know it, sending seeds into the garden. Rip that sucker out!!

WHY ARE THERE WEEDS!?
Well, there's a really simple answer to that one as a bible believing Christian... The fall of man. :) Yes God made man to tend to his garden. But after sin, God made that a more difficult and unpleasant task. Weeds, and (I like to think) bugs, plant diseases... This is a thought that always rolls back around in my head as I'm weeding. Somehow it makes the job seem somewhat redemptive (although if you think about it too hard, you'll realize that weeding should be the MAN'S job then! I gotta push out the babies AND  pull out the weeds, eh? haha!).

(sorry for the focus). This one always tricks me into thinking it miiiight just be a garden plant. But it's most definitely a weed!

There are some pretty good answers though on a less biblical note. For one thing, there are tree seeds fluttering about this time of year... There were also tree seeds fluttering about last fall, that over-wintered.  So some of that first round of weeds will be fall tree seeds and some will be spring tree seeds.  There are also seeds that were left from the plants you grew last year. Flowers drop seeds, tomatoes that rotted will sprout little seedlings, etc... Another place they can come from is compost. Composted animal manure usually results in many weeds, based on whatever those animals were eating. They ate the seeds, they passed the seeds, and the seeds sprout in your garden. Home made compost likewise can sometimes contain active seeds that never fully composted.  Yet another source of weeds, are those lovely seeds from weeds in your lawn! The dandelion fluff, clover, grass going to seed, etc... they all want a piece of your garden space! :)  And lastly, there are creepers... or squatters... plants that may have had roots down in the soil prior to that spot becoming a garden. Things like dandelion tap-roots that go down several feet. Or thistle root systems that live below where a tiller can kill them. Also grass roots can creep in from the outer perimeters of the garden.

young tender grass shoots that are from seeds (not pre-existing grass roots) are usually easy to control with early weeding.

WHEN SHOULD I WEED?
You should weed NOW! CLOSE THIS POST AND GO! (Just kidding... please finish reading first. It may be helpful. ;)  I try to weed my garden every day! Now before you lay down and have a hart-attack, I do NOT mean that I weed my ENTIRE GARDEN daily. I weed a little bit each day. In fact, I graze it. Nice day out? want to be outside but dont want to read or "sun bathe" etc.... just go pull weeds for a while. When I walk past a flower bed and notice some weeds, I stop and spend 5 minutes pulling them out. And in the veggie garden, I simply pick one or two types of plants, and do their weeding now and then. In the end, it all gets tended to.

carrot patch before weeding.

For real though, Weed soon, and often. This is such a good time of year to stay on top of weeding, because (besides the fact that you don't need to prune or harvest anything) at this point in the season in a zone 3 climate, roots are still shallow... But not just weed roots, your plant's roots too. The weeds and your seedlings are competing for space, moisture and nutrients from the soil. No only that, but weeds may be small now, but in a week or two they will over-shadow your beloved plants. So pull them out now, before they invade.

carrot patch after weeding. All plants have access to sunlight.

The other reason to weed frequently, is that if you are diligent in June and July, chances are you won't need to weed at all in August! :) The trick in June, is that YOU are deciding which plants get to establish themselves in your space. If you let the weeds live too long, then you'll not only rip out some of your good plant's roots with them, but your nice polite garden plants, will follow the rules of nature, and not invade on another plant's space. Your plants will not grow into a space where weeds are growing. So your plants will be smaller on the top, and have less roots below the surface!

SERIOUSLY! GET OUT THERE PEOPLE! :)

HOW SHOULD I WEED?
There are a few different methods for weeding.

1) Round up:  Not a first option by any means, but I'll touch on it briefly. Weeds between patio stones or on driveways, weeds that are not surrounding plants you want to keep alive, grass around mature trees... go ahead and use round up generously, as it claims to kill the root systems itself (I'm not sure I fully believe it though, as I've had many thistles return after round up)

2) Tilling: In an annual flower or veggie garden bed, you can use either a hand-tiller or tractor tiller to turn the soil, disconnecting the plants from their roots, turning the soil upside down, exposing roots to the sunshine and therefore killing those roots. The up-side is it's a real time-saver. the down side can be sewing surface seeds into the soil, or simply breaking off tops of weeds, while the tap roots get stronger. Still this is a method we use in our gardens. We make all the rows in our garden wide enough appart that our tiller can be passed through the rows. Then I simply need to hand-weed within my garden rows, and not the entire garden.

3) Spade weeding: for plants like dandelions and thistles that come back year after year, they grow a big "tap root" that looks almost like a skinny white carrot. When you are weeding these plants its important to get that root out. if your soil is very compact, it can be helpful to shove a spade down into the soil beside the weed, and loosen it up. Then you will at least be able to pull out several inches of the tap root, hopefully hindering it's further growth.

hand-tiller

4) Hand weeding:  This is the most cathartic I find... Those tender sprout weeds are usually pretty easy to get by hand. Each variety requires a certain finesse to pull out by the root. I'll go over a few from my garden below. Hand-weeding allows you to pull things directly beside your garden plants without too much disturbance to your preferred plants.

Next week, I will go into some detail about technique with weeding that might be helpful for some of you. But now, on to some current garden photos! :) This week I'll share my perennials and flowers. With next week's post I'll add the veggie garden plants.

PERENIALS:

 My Veggie garden perenials survived the winter beautifully. Somehow the garden fencing really trapped the snow in there, and they had a really big layer of insulating snow over them (unlike everything else this winter). Above is my oregano, already quite large. When we moved in fall 2016, I brought a root ball with me the size of 3 fingers circumfrence. So I'd say it's taken very well to it's new home! :)

 My perennial green onions (the larger ones on the left) have also taken very well since 2016, my chives have been slower to establish, being still the size of my thumb total. So my mother-in-law kindly gave me a couple more bunches of her chives (from her late aunt's garden) to try and get them going! :) they are all flowering well, so hopefully it'll do better this year.

Mint has been much slower to rise-and-shine after the winter, but it was all new plants last summer. The front plant is peppermint. To the right and back are two shoots from the same roots of a mojito mint plant (a slightly more mild but still pepper mint).

(First of all, I can't do selfies lol so don't judge) My asparagus is already at armpit height! I got one stock that was half the width of my pinky, so I imagine next year I may get some usable asparagus out of it! This is one of those pointless hobby projects now though, as we have very generous neighbors down the road that have an asparagus patch the size of my entire garden lol! But hey! Can't be a quitter! 4 years into this one! I started my asparagus when we were still in the city and brought it with me.

FLOWERS:

 

 I  bought 12...um...laundry baskets? lol from dollarama this year. Curtis quickly drilled about 6 holes in the bottoms of them, and they are now lined up around our dog run, full of flowers I seeded this past winter! They are just beginning to bloom beautifully! (they tiny white ones I purchased. They are called Alyssum.)

 My calendula flowers are beginning to bud and open up. Their seeds were from dollar tree :)

 Cosmos have been flowering for about a week now.

 And these two nasturtium are the first two to flower! Otherwise the rest are still leaves.

 I finally got my shade garden planted. This garden... I love it but I dont. The location is nice but the soil is garbage at this point... I think it was just construction fill. It needs some nutritional help! But hey. Gotta do something. So till it I did, and one of my five planted hostas returned. :) For shade I love impatiens. They look like a full sun flower, but they grow very large and over-take their spaces in the shade!

 I also planted a few grass spikes for some height variation, along with a couple of fuchsias for a medium heighted plant. It doesn't look like much yet, but I've got my hopes set high!

 In the sun garden, there's not a whole lot going on just yet in terms of flowers. My sedums are doing well. The hostas are still quite small, but the tall one (I can't remember it's name, but it looks like black eyed susans....But thats not what it is! lol) is doing great! :) My white strawberry plant in front of it is also very healthy (this is a non-spreading variety). The row of green is forget-me-knots. Behind those you can see the initial spikes of the bulbs I planted for my gladiolus. And there are some calendula in the front interspersed with plants I bought from my neighbors greenhouse. In the bottom right corner is the delphiniums I seeded. They look happy enough, and I'm hoping they will establish and become a perennial.

In my front flower barrels, again, not much floral action just yet. The big wide leaf in front is a dahlia (a nice large flower). In the middle, gladiolus bulbs. closest to the bottom are the snapdragons, and in the back, some more cosmos. In the smaller barrels is one dahlia surrounded by Alyssum.

Seeing all the plants I started from seeds, in their homes, and beginning to thrive, is such a rewarding feeling! Bulbs similarely are rewarding, but if I can manage to pull them out of the ground in the fall and use them again next year, that'll feel twice as good! :) 

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this one! Till next time, Keep it green!