Garden work

I have begun the war against stinktree for the season. For those of you unfamiliar with stinktree, it is a tree-like weed that stinks to high heaven when you touch it or cut it. It looks something like a palm tree, and when they peek up through my lilacs, my garden starts looking like a tropical rainforest. I wage constant war against it.

When you look it up, you'll find it is also called the "tree of heaven". Before Isabel, there were three tree-sized ones in teh surrounding yards- and I mean tree-sized, and in 60 feet tall, and looked like trees. They were actually quite beautiful, but getting on and brittle, and one went over in the storm; the others were removed as precaution. My garden became beautifully sunny, but I miss the dappled shade and their winter silhouettes. The whole nature of my own garden was dramatically changed.

I went from dappled shade to sun. That meant that the weeds began to win. I now have more Virginia Creeper than I can deal with on my fence. If I let things be, I'd have a whole grove of mulberry to make jam. Why can't a few birds drop off some dogwood seeds or something useful back here? I won't even get into my ever-present ground ivy.

I could spend whole weeks just trying to clear out the weeds. Fortunately, I have a good pair of loppers, a lot of newspaper, and I intend on getting in a fresh supply of mulch very soon. It may be a never-ending battle, but I at least have some shortcuts.

Tomatoes: Planted!

The first plants have hit my little corner of veggie gardening: tomatoes are in and growing! Woo-hoo!

A new plot for vegetables

I am working on a new project: vegetables. With the price of food soaring, I wanted to give it a try; plus, the guys may like digging in the dirt (if it ever cools off enough to let us put anything in). It may seem a little late to be planting, but I haven't had a chance before, and we had to move the sandboat to make the space.

I have turned the small plot over by hand. Its only about 4 x 5, so hiring a tiller for such a mini-garden seems a little silly. So out came the shovel, and I did it the semi-old-fashioned way. I also have a garden weasel, and I'm using it to "till" stuff into the little plot, like leftover potting soil. I am still working on getting the grass all out- crabgrass is a real problem here. I don't want to kill it artificially, because I want to use the plot for plants, so out they have to be dug by hand.

It is very therapeutic. Even in the heat.