Many hands make light work

Wendy and I went Dumpster diving today, the annual hunt for garden cardboard. I love to cardboard my garden. Weeds are executed by being buried alive (aren’t I a sinister person!), moisture is preserved and the soil enriched when the cardboard decays. We burn any cardboard remnants in our outdoor fireplace. And I get to feel virtuous because I’ve kept trash out of the landfill. A good deal all the way around. After coming up nearly empty on Main Street, we hit paydirt at the farm and home store. Dumpster was full of very good large pieces of cardboard. We filled up Marilyn’s truck bed.

Here’s Wendy unloading the boxes. Last year, I ended up paving garden with cardboard all by myself. That is out of the question this year. My shoulder is still far from healed.

It’s a rather strenuous process, lots of bending and twisting. All I did was to pull staples and peel off tape. They did all the hard work, for which I am very grateful. Looking at those weeds was driving me mad!

Boo says sitting on cardboard is nicer than sitting on bare ground. Enjoy it now, kitty, because cardboard will be covered with grass soon!

Spring flowers -- and less pleasant plants

All winter, I look forward to spring. Spring has been delayed this year. January, February and early March were unseasonably warm. We even celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with an evening picnic.

On March 19, winter returned and has held us in his grip, to varying degrees, nearly ever since. Our tulips came up very late, but here they are at last.I so enjoy watching for my perennials’ return each year. Watching my plantings, like these hostas, come back is like opening a birthday present.Our ash tree is sprouting leaves again, which gives promise of shade from the future heat of summer. This tree shades Hubby when he’s grilling. Trees are a delight.However, some growing things are not a delight. Bindweed is high on the list of hateful plants. I had to spray Roundup on this stuff two or three times last year to knock it down and here the nasty stuff is growing again. How I hate it! I’ve hated it since I was a little kid. I had to pull it out only to have it grow again. It has such wickedly long roots that it’s nearly impossible to eradicate.Until earlier this spring, I never knew what this wicked weed was named. It’s henbit and I hate it, too. Our local Extension agent said that this wicked thing must be sprayed in the fall. Spraying it in the spring is a waste of money, time and effort, he said. This nasty stuff had nearly taken over one of my flower beds. When I ripped it out Wednesday afternoon, a couple of my tulip bulbs came up, too. I was none too pleased at that, but it couldn’t be helped. I pushed the bulbs into the ground again and hope they’ll recover from their uprooting.

The incident reminded me of one of Jesus’ parables: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’ (Matt. 13:24-29 NIV)

I’m grateful that I’ll be one of the wheat sheaves gathered into the Lord’s barn. I sure would hate to be considered a noxious weed!

Don't Fence Me In!

Marilyn's post yesterday reminded me of the truck farm my brother and I worked when we were at home. (This picture was taken in 1994, after we were both married. Truck farm was much smaller by then.) We didn't live on a farm, but my mother had grown up on the farm. She was still a farm girl at heart. She could not and would not abide laziness. She had the world's longest to-do list and she intended for it to be completed.

We had plenty of chores, including lots of garden ones. After baking in the hot sun while doing tasks I hated, I decided I would NEVER have a garden when I grew up. No way. Not going to do it.

Never say never.

My mother was very frugal, partly from necessity and partly from preference. She hated waste and unnecessary spending. So she had a huge garden full of all kinds of vegetables. Being hyper organized, she kept a meticulous garden book, noting where she had planted each crop and what varieties she used. I prize that book now, but I don't keep one.

Her garden rows seemed infinite when we were pulling weeds or other boring tasks under the beating sun. And she could always find weeds that we never saw. I learned to love mulching because it suppressed those horrible weeds.

Late summer and early fall was canning/freezing time. She ran a regular factory in the basement, but putting up our produce was the reward for nasty tasks like weeding. I entered into food preservation whole-heartedly. Looking at neat rows of produce-filled jars was always a pleasurable experience. Eating them was even better!

How I miss eating her frozen corn recipe, which will appear tomorrow, and her very labor-intensive red hot pickle recipe, which will appear the next day.

When I lived in Virginia, a friend from upstate New York invited me to her house for Thanksgiving. I continually longed for farm country and she said we would pass through lots of farm country.

Our ideas of what farm country meant were diametrically opposed. We drove roads that were lined with houses. Their lots were long and narrow. Their houses sat next to the road with large gardens behind them. She said those were farms. What farms?

My idea of a farm is acres of corn, wheat, milo and/or sunflowers. Anything else is a just a repeat of my mother's garden. In my idea of farm country, the neighbors can't look into each other's windows just as they could in suburbia!

I thought of the Roy Rogers song "Don't Fence Me In".

"... Let me ride through the wide open country that I love,
Don't fence me in.
Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please,
Don't fence me in..."

De-mint-ed

I should have listened to my mother.

Hubby and I planted mint in our vegetable garden. After we'd done the work, she warned us that mint was very invasive. We didn't want to undo what we'd done and we left that plant in our garden. How foolish was that!

Mint sends out wicked runners. All those runners must be removed from the garden or the plants will grow back. If we had listened and ripped it out, we would have saved ourselves much grief and work. Instead, every spring I "de-mint" the garden. When it's done, I say I am "de-mint-ed." I was demented to plant it in the first place!

The first year we de-mint-ed, we had to get fill dirt from a construction site because our garden had a crater in it. That evil plant had even sent runners under our sidewalk to infiltrate another garden. The crater's contents went into our driveway. The Frugal Gardener hates waste. We're still dumping our precious garden soil into the drive because of mint contamination, although the loads get smaller each year.

Unfortunately for us, we planted the mint right on our property line. It spread into the neighbor's lawn. The neighbor thinks the stuff is great and tends it. Therefore, it spreads right back into our garden. See the mint poking through the fence? I can't dig up the mint that's right on the line because my shovel hits concrete. So I'm stuck with it.

Yes, I definitely should have listened to my mother. Don't plant mint!

Green Gold

Water is at a premium in our lovely windy, semi-arid climate. Keeping our plants hydrated is a strenuous task. The Frugal Gardener also intensely dislikes weeding. So she has a solution to both. It's called mulch. Merriam-Webster defines "mulch" as "a protective covering (as of sawdust, compost, or paper) spread or left on the ground to reduce evaporation, maintain even soil temperature, prevent erosion, control weeds, enrich the soil, or keep fruit (as strawberries) clean."



Once mulching is done for the year, we start filling our mulch bin. To make the bin, Dad wired together six pallets that were headed for the landfill. (Rescuing items from the landfill always makes me feel virtuous.) Voila! Free mulch bin! Construction took about an hour.



We fill the bin with yard waste, mostly grass clippings. However, we do save leaves as well.



To suppress weeds, we lay down cardboard and newsprint before covering them with grass clippings, leaves or whatever else will degrade. I get the local newspaper's extra papers just for the asking.



I used to lay down just newsprint, but the cardboard stays down much better. That's very important in our high winds. My friend and I Dumpster dive until we get enough cardboard boxes to cover our gardens. We break down the boxes and remove all plastic tape. Plastic tape does not degrade and will just have to be pulled out of the garden later. Then we lay the flattened boxes on the ground. Weeds are smothered and the ground is better insulated than if we just used yard waste.

Do not use any coated paper or boxes. They don't degrade well, so you miss the soil enrichment. Make sure to completely cover the paper/cardboard to keep the wind from getting it.



Once I finish mulching, I water the new mulch to compact it as well as make it heavier.

Happy mulching!

Headed for the Last Roundup

The Frugal Gardener despises bindweed (seen here in my corner garden) and its cousin morning glory. Wicked, wicked weeds! I've battled them ever since my brother and I slaved in my mother's garden.

Our previous homeowner actually planted morning glory where we now have our vegetable garden. What were they thinking? They had even erected a wire trellis for it. Removing that trellis was our first garden project.

Every year I pull, pull, pull that nasty vine. And every year it returns. Disgusting. Morning glory is supposed to be an annual. If "annual" means that it returns annually, the description is right on.

I didn't have a bindweed problem until last year. Then it appeared in my corner garden, probably brought by a passing vehicle or bird droppings. UGH. Some started growing in my sidewalk. I dumped straight bleach on the sidewalk bindweed and killed it.

I've already sprayed the corner garden once this year and I sprayed it again today. Hopefully this spraying does the job. If not, I'm going back out there. That stuff is going to die!

I found quite a discussion about killing bindweed on Garden Web's forum. Some people get hot under the collar about using chemical weed control.

I prefer organic gardening to using chemicals, but if it's a choice between bindweed infestation or using chemicals, I choose chemicals.