When the Rain Comes, It Means Time to Weed

The word of the year for the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden for 2019 is fun.  So, we do not have much planned this year.  After Earth Day, we only had two gardeners to complete their three hours of work equity.   And April showers have kept most of the gardeners away this week.  Our cherry trees are in in their beautiful, flowery glory.  BUT, the bees have not been flocking to them as they have in the past.  


On Wednesday, Phil mowed our lawn, picked up litter, edged and mulched around the Meteor cherry tree and tulips in the front lawn.   Charlie – who has not gardened with us in a few years – returned and dug through bricks and stones to help straighten out the northeast corner of the fence.   Charlie is the gardener who helped me to pick up landscaping stones and then edged the entire front flower bed.  He also built the brick pad in front of the shed and picked up our rickety wheelbarrow at a yard sale.   He left after buying his own house and thought that he would grow his food in his backyard.  You know what they say about best laid plans.  Instead, he had shade trees.  So, now he’s back.

We just have 20 feet left to complete on our fence project this year before the brambles get too tall.  We worked until dark.  I painted the wood as we installed the fence.  (The pickets were painted two years ago).  


Ken stopped by on Saturday afternoon to pick up and dispose of two of the pallets that were dumped on our lawn last week.  The rest remain and have killed the grass on the north part of the lawn.  


Sabrina came on Thursday to weed and plant some lettuce and spinach.  Her plot is again covered in purple nettles.  She again put down black garden fabric to kill them, but Friday night’s storm ripped a lot of it up.  She also had lots of volunteer daisies, so I transplanted them to make room for her vegetables.


I got a late start on Saturday because I had not planned to be there   However, it stopped six hours early.  Of course, it was muddy and chilly.  Conventional wisdom says not to garden in the mud because the soil will become too compact and restrict tender roots.  But, it is a great time to weed because the soil is soft.   I planted some lettuce seedlings and replanted my spinach (which should have sprouted before now).   I then weeded one of the food pantry plots and planted all of my extra cabbage seedlings so that they would not get root bound.  When the rain did not return, I had to water them in (if you can believe it).
in light of the anticipated rain.

I also weeded the flower beds and started digging dandelion plants out of the lawn.   You might notice that our front lawn looks amazing.  It is not a chemical blessing; it is a yoga downward dog one.  We have bent over and physically removed the dandelions (but not the violets or clover) over the years.  A thick lawn keeps them from re-establishing themselves.  So, every year I pick off the dandelions growing on the periphery.  Yes, the bees love them, but we have lots of flowers and flowering trees that need and feed them.


Our cherry trees are blooming profusely.   That being said, there was not a bee in sight (unlike Wednesday).  I'm hoping that the rain was the culprit.  The Granny Smith and Jonathon apples are also starting to bloom.  The McIntosh apples are blooming, but not the Honeycrisp that we planted last week.  It just has buds.  So, there is no chance of McIntosh or Honeycrisp apples this year.  The peach trees already bloomed so-so.  The plums are just so-so.  The elderberry bushes have quadrupled in size from last year.  


Ethan came to weed his plot and plant some onions.  He also edged a plum tree.  I edged the   Then I mulched the plum tree and elderberry bushes.  And I planted some more onions and some swiss chard.
elderberry bushes and weeded a few blueberry bushes.


I have other things to plant, but it was 2:00 and I had other things to do, like cook and clean.