Reducing Weed Loads

     

Weed loads—I have been pondering weeds lately as I face the daunting task of bringing the school garden into some sort of order. It’s hard—a focused group of three to five people, working for a couple of hours every week would whip it into shape in no time, but…we all have lives- -and gardens-- outside of school and commitment is difficult. Especially when it comes to blackberry brambles.  It’s not like the garden is a weed patch; the actual beds are in pretty good order, weeded, mulched, and irrigated only around the crops. It’s the edges and paths, and the unique challenges of nut sedge, a lush green grassy looking weed which has a nasty little nodule that needs to be removed to kill it, that are a challenge.  I find myself making little lists in my mind before I fall asleep.

Weed Suppression techniques:

1.       Weed and mulch with cardboard and chips: Very effective in the short term and looks really nice when done. However, I have a deep and abiding suspicion that, long term, I am creating a really nice bed for some deep rooted weeds.

2.       Mowable paths: Looks nice and is pretty easy to maintain. Do the weeds creep into the beds more easily? Probably.

3.       Dry and trampled paths: This happens naturally over time with heavy foot traffic, especially during mud season. It is cheap and easy to maintain, once the irrigation is set up, but does it look very good?

4.    

   Preferred invasives: I used this one a great deal—plant things I like to push out what I don’t. Or don’t weed out what is spreading. Calendula flowers. Mints. Mustard and amaranth. Lady’s Mantle. Sunflowers. Fennel. Pollinators love it but it can get out of control – but is it worse than the nut sedge?

5.       Densely planted perennial beds: Similar to method four, this method depends upon crowding out the plants we do not want in favor of ones that we do. With drought tolerant herbs, this can be very effective, but takes a few years to establish.

6.       Constant weeding: Deep sigh….needed, but takes a great deal of time and effort. Should be saved for focused areas.

7.       Weed-whacking: Improves the area in the short term, but does not eliminate the problem. And that string is a pain!

8.       This is a food farm, not a flower garden: Rethinking expectations to match the area. I do this at home. Everything does not have to be perfect to be beautiful and productive.

Four of Wands, Reversed

   

     The Four of Wands, reversed. Every cross quarter day, I pull on card from the tarot, using it to guide the coming six weeks. On May Day, I pulled the four of wands, which is a celebratory card of people dancing under an arbor of flowers. It looks like a wedding, but it is open to interpretation. Even reversed, it is positive, just more low key. And this has been the tone of the last few weeks, as Benton County moves slowly, cautiously, out of the pandemic. Over 69% of the eligible population is vaccinated, so we are able to gather safely, in quiet celebration.

High school classes have been in person for a month and students are smarter and more focused, even as the entire class is vaccinated and they begin to slip snacks under their masks, pound each other on the back, and stare at the same computer once more. They gather outside for lunch, perching on the bleachers like flocks of birds, all talking at once. We had an outdoor choir concert with senior solos, Mary’s Peak in the background, on Thursday night and graduation on Saturday morning. Together. There were hugs. Shouts. Laughter. Some tears. Small celebrations.

At home, we have been visiting with friends, botanizing prairies and peaks, riding together in the same car.  We have eaten meals together—outside, still, but outside in June is beautiful.  There is talk of a pie social, of gathering to work on bike codes, of being together once again. The library is opening up for browsing on the Summer Solstice. We can see faces when we go for walks. Once again, small celebrations.

We will not know the total losses from the year- -from the isolation, from the pandemic, from the wildfires—for a long while. I expect to stumble over our losses for at least a year; a trail or business closed, a friend’s family member lost to the virus, an acquaintance   to the culture wars…losses we do not know now. So, moving onward, there is no huge celebration, like I imagine there might be after winning a war. We did not win this war, we merely survived. That, however, is worth a small celebration.

Memorial Day Morning

 

Memorial Day morning—sunny and quiet. The chickens are roaming in the run, the cat asleep on the bench, the rabbit nibbling a grape leaf. There is tea and toast for breakfast and the light is on the dining table.  We traditionally stay at home on this weekend; the outdoor world of campgrounds and lakes is packed with families gathering together, making a joyous racket late into the night.  Instead, I make my Aunty Marilyn’s macaroni salad, with the gherkins and tuna fish, red onion for a bite, maybe grill some tofu and zucchini, and prepare for the last push of the school year. It is a quiet time, this last weekend in May, nostalgic, as another senior class gets ready to head out the door. We remember the past.

My juniors are reading The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien this week, discovering his musings on the nature of war, and friendship, and story—what is true and what is real are not always the same thing. It is a good way to end this long, strange, difficult year, thinking about story. What will we tell each other about this time of disease, racial and political strife, and discontent? What have we learned? What will we take out of this dark time, moving forward?

“Stories will save us.”

               

Summer Signs

   

 It has been a warm and dry spring. We both love it and feel nervous about it at the same time. Wildfires loom in our minds. This last weekend was the time to move our lives outside.

1. Planted the rest of the garden beds in summer crops.

2. Emptied the greenhouse of garden plants and moved some house plants in for better light.

3. Mowed the yard and trimmed.

4. Cleared the sidewalk garden of bulbs that have gone by.

5. Arranged the firepit area.

6. Cleared up the compost corner.

7. Set up the outside shower with towels and soap.

8 Moved the chickens onto the summer range. 

9. Set out the dining table and ate dinner there.

10. Drank our evening tea under the arches  and solar lights-- in the shape of bees-- outside.

Finley Wildlife Refuge--- plant list

 

                There is a lovely peacefulness in a botanizing hike. The mileage is less, the stops more frequent, the pace slower as we watch for bright spots in the deep green woods and fields. Mid-May is the perfect time for late spring flowers in the Willamette Valley, so we returned to Finley Wildlife Refuge again this weekend, this time with the books. We know most of the flowers and where we will find some specific old friends, but there are always a few that need to be teased out. Mark, long ago, discovered the two best ways to increase the count: pay attention to those tiny little white flowers and become familiar with the different varieties of some common species. He was trying to work on his checkermallows today.  We are still a little confused.

Woodpecker Loop to Mill Hill Plant List:

English Daisy

Hawthorne—not native (thorns!!)

Dandelion

Poverty Clover

Field Madder

Shining Geranium

Native Blackberry

Yellow Avens

Spring Beauty

Fringe Cup

Small flowered buttercup

Sweet Cicely

Trillium

Bird’s foot buttercup

Camus

Cleavers

Mariposa Lily

Cow Parsnip

Hop Clover

Iris

Wild Rose

Red Lotus

Sheep’s Sorrel

Parsley Leaved Lovage

Strawberry

Rose Checkermallow

Speedwell

Buckthorn

Stinky Bob

Nemophilia (small)

Columbine

Prairie Star

Western Starflower

Gorse

Larkspur

Footsteps of Spring

Yellow Paintbrush

Waterleaf  (there were two)

Thinmbleberry

Bleeding Heart

Scarlet Pimpernel

Shasta Daisy

Clover

Blue Eyed Grass

Serviceberry

False Dandelion

 

Meadows by the road:

Popcorn Flower

Monkeyflower

Lomaium Nudicalum

Another checkermallow, bigger and paler

Flax

Cinquefoil

Madrone

Wild cucumber

White Lupine

White Larkspur

Field Bindweed

Bittercress

 

 

 

 

 

 

April

 

 

               The world has been warm and sunny for the past two weeks—lovely, but it just does not feel right, in Oregon, in April. This weekend, the clouds returned, rain softened the clods of dirt in my summer greens garden bed just before I needed to prep it for planting, and the sky is full of layers and layers of cloud with sun shining through the gaps. Despite the swelling slugs in the grass, it is beautiful.

                The greenhouse is full. There are some extra early cabbage starts in four inch pots from my first round of planting. The tomatoes have all been bumped up. Eighty six are waiting to go to new homes this coming weekend; 18 sit in gallon pots underneath the shelf, ready to be planted out in about three weeks, when the coop moves to the back run. The third round of plantings, known as the summer greens, is in six packs and four inch pots, resting over the tub. And today, I planted the vines, flowers, and herbs that will go out when it is truly warm in late May. After I start the corn tomorrow, every spot will be filled. The cat wanders in as I work, waiting to be boosted up to her shelf over the door, where she hangs a paw down while she naps.

  

              Outside, lilac and wisteria waft a deep purple fragrance over the back yard. Wild hyacinth and white alliums sprawl out of the beds onto the sidewalk. The early greens are ready for small soft salads. I mulched the potato bed this afternoon and Mr. Beezhold hopped right over to nibble on the dry grass, which is better than the rhubarb or the asparagus. The chickens are laying an egg most days and they have given in and are using the official nest box, rather than scrambling to get out or laying in the furthest corner of the run.  The fig tree has thumb sized figs forming at the base of the new leaves. Mark has to mow every five or six days to keep up; the push mower does not work well when the grass is too high.

                Late April is full of hope in the garden. Everything is started and growing. Nothing has been attacked by slugs, or flea beetles, or a chicken on a rampage…there are no failures or mistakes yet, no lessons learned the hard way. Soft rains help the cabbages grow and the warm sun pulls us all outside.

Post Pandemic School clothes?

     

When the pandemic began and I realized that no one would be able to see me in any great detail, I sorted out my school clothes from my just plain old clothes and put the decent ones away. Given my tendency to wander into the back yard to check on the broccoli—a very common activity in April—and then falling to my knees to trim out a bed and becoming covered in dirt and grass stains, then retreating to cook dinner and splashing olive oil on my shirt, it seemed prudent.  I am very hard on my clothes. I was also interested in seeing just how long seven pairs of old socks and three pairs of very old jeans would last, after being used every day.

The socks have worn out. There is a great deal of wear left in a sock once the comfy cushion has been washed away, but, finally, real holes appeared. Last month, I pulled down my sock bag and greeted a few “new” pairs for the drawer. It was nice to see old friends. My tee shirts are still sticking around, unchanged. My jeans are almost dead,  with very thin places in the seat, but comfortable.

As school opens up again, this is creating a problem. For the last year, I have been rolling out of bed, pulling on my old pants and a long sleeved shirt, and heading off into the day, comfy and covered, if not stylish and pristine. On Spartan Garden days in the fall, I wore my very baggy, poorly hemmed garden pants to school and no one knew. My shoes were muddy and battered. My jeans were patched. No one cared. I am spoiled.

Last week, I peered into my closet. There was my collection of skirts that I have added onto for many years. The black skirt from my second year of teaching….the swirling orange skirt that I bought to take to a Shakespeare workshop in Ashland…the short flowered one I found on Hawthorne for 21 dollars in September… old friends? I sighed. I don’t want to renew my acquaintance with them. When I complained to Mark, he asked “do you plan on having a bonfire?”  I don’t know. I believe in wearing things out, not throwing them out. But here I am-- wanting to stick with the garden pants and facing the reality of skirts, tights, leather shoes, and clean hair. Over time, I’ll adjust…but maybe I will start in September.