An Admirable Enemy

Weeds are a part of gardening that cannot be avoided (unless you garden hydroponically).  In the Charamon Garden we deal with several tenacious weeds.  Some have extremely deep roots and are very drought resistant…and…if you don’t pull out the majority of the root when weeding…it just comes back again.  A good example of this one is the Bindweed.  Get it all and get it before it seeds or it will be your constant companion.

Today I have been dealing with two very successful interlopers: Spurge and Nutgrass (aka Nutsedge).  Spurge is successful because it grows thickly and quickly, produces thousands of seeds (terrible little stickers) and has a long taproot.  Nutgrass is successful because of the way it reproduces.  At the base of the plant a “nut” or tuber develops.  That tuber immediately sends out side rhizomes to form another plant several inches away.  It develops a nut and continues the process (see photos).  The rhizomes become so thin that when you pull the plant out, it easily breaks leaving its “children” to develop independently.  And so the circle of life continues.  If you leave it alone you will soon have a “lawn” of nutgrass in your garden.  You have to admire this particular enemy…a worthy adversary.

Update for September

I realize that I haven’t posted for a while but other voices have been calling to me. Right or wrong, the absolutely urgent always trumps the pleasure of writing.

But, you might like to know what has been happening in the Charamon Garden. It is also a record for me when I ask myself, “When did I plant those fava beans last year?” So…here is what has been happening in September.

We have begun reclaiming beds that have not been used or cared for appropriately. We have begun this process with the help of my son, Justin. He has his father’s love of gardening and has been a strong and energetic help to his old man who gets tired too easily. He has tirelessly weeded, chopped, dug, hoed and hauled until things are once again in pretty good shape. He has dug out the trash trees, raked and tilled and mulched.

We have prepared the bed that will be used for tomatoes in the spring by planting a cover-crop of hairy vetch and a few broad (fava) beans. These will grow all winter and then be cut and left where they lie. We will cover all this with more mulch and then set out the tomato plants. We had a tomato crop failure this year because we took some wrong-headed advice and planted the tomatoes in the same bed for three years. Don’t do that.

We (Justin mostly) cleaned our largest bed and sowed more hairy vetch in it. At this point I am not sure what will be planted there in the spring/summer garden.

Our sweet corn is tasseling and silking out and we hope to see some nice ears of corn in the next few weeks. We had an infestation of army cut worms which Justin took care of with a dusting of BT. It has a lot of aphids on it but the ladybird beetles have arrived and will hopefully make meals of them.

We have planted the most garlic ever and the harvest will keep us busy around the last of April 2009. We will dry it and braid it and use much more than the recipes call for.

We have planted more swiss chard and it is looking good. This needs thinning pretty soon. We covered the seeds with a mixture of compost and sand and all sorts of things are coming up with the new chard…mostly squash and tomatoes. Their seed have been residing in the compost waiting for their chance.

We have planted carrots and a row of lettuce and we’re waiting for them to germinate. We are hopefully optimistic.

We have set out kale, cauliflower, collards, broccoli and cabbage.

We are harvesting yellow squash, lovely purple eggplant, okra, swiss chard, green peppers (capsicums) and, if Justin had not eaten them right off the tree (he deserved them), quite a few figs.

The butternut squash is looking very good and we should have a good supply over the next few months.

In the meantime eat your veggies…Nonnie and Pop said so.

Swiss Chard aka Silverbeet

We are in the midst of a weeding/planting semi-frenzy at Charamon. Since I can only devote time to the garden in the mornings, I get up before dawn and start work as soon as I can see things (and have a cup of strong coffee in me).

We are fortunate to live in a zone (7b) where some vegetables grow through autumn and winter (see previous post). One such plant that does very well here is swiss chard (silverbeet). We grow it instead of spinach and we eat loads of it. It is rumored to help stave-off dementia (I meant to mention this before but I kept forgetting).

So for the last two days, Justin (number 2 son) and I have been weeding a bed and preparing it for planting. This also required harvesting the compost from my concrete block bin. After weeding and smoothing the surface, we laid down a layer of compost and then topped it up with a couple inches of mulch. We made three furrows and laid a mixture of sand and compost in the bottom of the furrow. The seeds were sown on top of this and covered with a thin layer of more of the same. Then it is all watered well and…now we wait.

The compost/sand mixture is 4 compost to 1 sand (I use lava sand). The compost is from two sources — a conventional pile of decomposed leaves and grass clippings combined with compost from the bin mentioned above. This is mixed in my cement mixer and decanted into a wheelbarrow. I use this mixture because my soil is mostly clay and can form a hard surface that some seeds have trouble getting through.

Now we are looking forward to eating a lot of stir fried chard mixed with garlic and pine nuts, swiss chard tortes and other delicious preparations. In the meantime…eat your veggies…Nonnie and Pop said so!

Thanks to A Veggie Garden for the photo.