| The unfenced space in the front yard is lush with weeds. All kinds of weeds. At first I hoped to put a thick layer of newspaper on it, then cover that with compost and soil, and plant right on top of everything in order to kill the weeds. I ran that past my source of all gardening advice (Bill of City Farmers Nursery) and he warned me that it wouldn't work if we have Bermuda grass. Umm... we have Bermuda grass. So that won't work.
Better get to work pulling the weeds! We couldn't start for much of this week because we had nearly 4 inches of rain spread out over several days. Finally, Saturday, our oldest daughter said to me: "Can I help you with planting stuff?" You could have knocked me over with a feather. This is the child who I've been begging to plant cauliflower since Christmas (when Santa gave her cauliflower seeds in her stocking).
"Sure!" I replied, pretending I wasn't shocked at all. "Want to plant your cauliflower?"
We headed out to the back yard together and I guided her as she filled up little trays with soil and planted her seeds. I didn't expect she'd want to do much else beyond that but when I started off for the front yard to get going with the weeding, she followed. So did her little sister.
With all of the rain, the usually hard, clay soil was practically a liquid. The weeds came right out by the roots with a light tug. This was ideal garden work for two small kids - especially because the entire patch was weeds so there were no worries about stepping on or killing crops.
We worked until the little one was about ready to pee her pants, and then I went inside to help her go potty and we all ended up taking a break. Much later, after dinner, our older daughter surprised me again by going back to pull more weeds. I joined her. We talked a lot about nature, like how amazingly strong plants are, how smart trees are to make their own mulch by losing their leaves, and how cool it is that animals have strange adaptations that help them survive the harsh, dry climate here. I surprised her with the fact that flowers are plants' way of having babies and then explained that fruits are plants' ovaries - just like humans and animals have ovaries - but instead of having eggs like animals, plants have seeds. She said, putting two and two together, "So every fruit comes from a flower? Yes, I guess that makes sense. Like, apples come from apple blossoms." What a great kid!
Here's a pic of the yard after all of that work:
There's a LOT left to go. However, we filled up an entire garbage can with weeds (don't worry - the city composts yard waste). And here's a pic of something that surprised me:
Would you check out that enormous, woody root on that dandelion?? Sheesh, who knew?!
Yesterday we had no time for gardening, so today I did a bit more work without the kids. Here's a pic of the same patch of unfenced front yard now:
And, because you can barely see it in that picture, here's the shady patch where I worked until I got a blister today:
There are so many weeds here that it's impossible to know if we've gotten all of the Bermuda grass roots out. We're mixing 2 big bags of compost into the soil now, and it's going to rain tomorrow night and Wednesday. I plan to just wait a few days to let the weeds grow again, so we can get rid of whatever survived the first round of weeding. In the meantime, I got some of our "Salad Bar" plants started off in little trays in the backyard:
The trays on the table are herbs (white tray) and four types of lettuce (orange trays). On the ground are cauliflower, chard, broccoli, lima beans, and red and white dragonfruit (the cacti). I planted the broccoli several days ago and it's already sprouted:
I've been using Foxfarm Ocean Forest Potting Soil:
It came highly recommended by Bill of City Farmer's Nursery. It's a mix of worm castings, bat guano, and perlite.
Here's an update on some of the other plants in the garden that I've written about previously:
The carrots need to be thinned
I did a bit of thinning today and here's what the carrots look like so far. Not quite big enough to eat yet.
The garlic seems like it's bigger every time I look at it
The sugarsnap peas are over a foot and a half tall
We might have lost some cabbage in the rain storm
The pomegranate and fig trees-to-be are sprouting leaves but still not showing the signs of "vigorous growth" that I'm supposed to be looking for
And, as a footnote, when our older daughter was answering the question "Why did you choose to read this book?" on her non-fiction book report about a book on guinea pigs, she replied: "Because I am a fan of nature." Woohoo!!!!
For the full story about "Flower Power Farm" (the name we chose for our garden):
Part 1: Preparing the soil and planting the carrot seeds
Part 2: Preparing the soil for peas and cruciferous veggies
Part 3: Enter the Pests
Part 4: The Carrots Sprouted!
Part 5: Gardening with the Kids
Part 6: The Peas Sprouted!
Part 7: The Cabbage Sprouted!
Part 8: The Garlic, Broccoli, and Nasturtiums Sprouted
Part 9: Fruit Tree Propagation Workshop
Part 10: Rain, Rain Go Away |
