I was being overly optimistic. I'd been THINKING about taking advantage of the good weather to get going in the garden. In the meantime, the weeds hadn't been thinking - they'd been doing.
It wasn't ALL bad. Along with the daffodils and the onions, I'd left the chard roots in because with the warm winter, they'd never entirely quit producing. The last serious picking had been in December, when I'd pretty much plucked 'em bare thinking that eventually we might get winter - but I never got around to pulling them up.
I got a decent little bag of greens off of them before I pulled them up. Bagged all the onion flowers too, they're just buds right now and I thought maybe I would throw them in with the lamb shanks I plan to braise one of these days when I have a little time to cook. Just an experiment, y'know? The chard, I took over to TQ's in the evening - he was making dinner, I didn't have quite enough for both of us, but he sauteed what I had up and added it to some pink beans he'd already made as a side dish & it came out very well.
Mostly, though, it was weeds, especially this purple stuff that proves the adage about a weed just being a plant that's growing somewhere somebody doesn't want it.
Pretty little flowers, aren't they? If they were down at the other end of the lawn by the kayak racks, yeah! Up here in the garden? AIEEEE! What IS that creeping purple crud??? There are 2 beds adjacent to mine - can you see them?
So I got going on reclaiming my plot from all the encroachers. The purple crud, the green crap, the dandelions, the grass, the mint...oh, the mint, I don't mind a little mint growing nearby, but the stuff was coming in thick and I ended digging down under the sprigs and pulling out yard-long runners.
One hour and change into the weeding, half reclaimed -
Three hours later - hooray! I win!
Yes, I'd reclaimed the bed - but I was out of time, and out of gas. Planting?
Nope, just put the "cat discouragers" in place, packed up my pickings and my seeds and headed back to Midwood.
I'll be back!
Can't resist closing with a gratuitous Glenwood Avenue parakeet shot. Stopped to watch them for a little while on my way to the club - I'd just missed a bus so I had a little time to watch the birdies.
3 comments:
Pile the birdies high at Sheepshead Bay and Canarsie. Shovel them under and let me work--I am the grass; I cover all.
My words always come back to haunt me.
You're not telling me that annual mess o' basil you always humiliate me with starts from a packet of seeds, are you?
Go ahead, just rub it in, why don't you?
Ahhh, poetry!
O-Docker, I have usually taken a two-pronged approach to my basil growing. I start with seeds, I plant them, I wait and wait and wait and then I decide they're never coming up, so I go to the garden center and buy a little tray of seedlings and plant them.
I was never entirely sure that the seeds ever actually did anything, but last year I tried just skipping straight to the seedlings, and although I still had a decent crop, it never quite came in with the exuberance of past seasons. Apparently the seeds just need a little encouragement & seeing the seedlings gives them that nudge that they need to come on and sprout.
This year I'm back to the two-step plan.
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