While I grew up helping in our vegetable garden and canning the produce, it was never my thing. In large part because I needed to avoid the sun AND I am a bug magnet with rather extreme reactions to bites. The fact that I have found real joy in pulling weeds around the trees and around the house this past week has taken me by surprise. After mowing last Saturday and weed whacking on Sunday I was left with the below. I wasn’t sure how much may be flowers. Craig is not a gardener and the flowers that are here were here when he moved in. So I called my friendly gardening expert Deb. She said to send her pictures. Within minutes she had sent me her assessment of what was in each picture along with the warning that there was poison ivy in several places
Bottom line, most of what was growing was not flowers so I set about pulling weeds. The weather has been perfect. Sixties and low seventies and there are no bugs yet. Listening to podcasts and books I have had a great time pulling weeds and learning which are easy to pull out with roots and which require a trowel. I see the squirrels playing, wild turkeys in their mating ritual, hear peacocks who live across the road. and the woodpeckers The cows are often nearby. It has been immensely satisfying,
The before and after are pretty dramatic. Craig is an expert at the poison ivy.as h
e hauled 6 truck loads of poison ivy vines away after he moved here 10 years ago. I am over half way through with getting rid of the weeds. It will be so much easier to mow. Now Craig wants to know what I am going to do with the areas I am cleaning up. Am I ready to become a real gardener and actually plant something? Should I just mulch or should I just weed in the spring and see how fast the weeds come back before beautiful weather for weeding next spring?
I am off.to Iowa for the weekend and hopefully I will still have a week of good weather for gardening when I return.
Tamara Unleashed 