When You Need To Do Some Megaweeding

In a normal year, we would be running the sprinklers on the garden about now, because it would be so hot and dry, with no promise of rain. But this is not a normal year. I'm not sure what that even is anymore. We've just come out of one of the wettest Junes on record and July is off to a soggy start.

Last night, we had over four inches of rain and we really didn't need any. There was water laying in the field across the road and our next-door neighbor had lakefront property right out his front door. We've got two sump pumps in our basement and both of them running together could barely keep up with the water coming in. Fortunately, we weren't one of several residents in the area that lost that battle.

All this rain means the gardens are looking fantastic. The hostas appear to be on steroids. The double daylilies are blooming 100% double, for once. And the weeds are growing so fast and so big that I don't recognize them.

About those weeds... The gardens proper are doing fine in that department, thanks to either full plantings or mulch that's doing its job. But two areas are in desperate need of help. The Berry Barn, which I had completely weeded four weeks ago - it looked fantastic, I promise - now looks as if I haven't set foot in it all year.

And the grape arbor, well, let's talk about the grape arbor. We first planted grapes in 2008 - Mars, Reliance, and Himrod. We enjoyed these seedless table varieties for many years, until the last couple, when they just didn't do well.

This spring, ironically, none of the Reliance vines made it through the winter. One Himrod bit the dust and the other one isn't looking that good either. Both of the Mars vines made it, but they aren't producing a single grape. This has caused us to reevaluate this grape thing.

Romie wanted to just tear out the arbor and be done with it, but I wouldn't have any of that. I love that arbor, grapes or no grapes. So we I decided we'd let the grapes that remain do their thing and plant various clematis vines in place of the grapes that died.

"What if the clematis starts climbing all over the grapes?" he said. "Then they'll look pretty," I said. And that was that. But this post is about weeding, and the base of the grape arbor was absolutely solid weeds.

See the weeds at the rear of the grape arbor base? The whole thing
looked like that when I started weeding.

Dandelions, various grasses, a couple of types of clover (and they'd produced seed pods by now), poison ivy, plantain, baptisia seedlings, white mulberry, thistles, Washington hawthorn seedlings, creeping euphorbia, and various other weeds had made themselves right at home while we mulled over what to do.

Since the arbor was staying and we were growing desirable things on it, these weeds had to go, but oh my gosh, where to start? Images of a bulldozer came to mind, but we didn't have one. I love my family of Cobrahead weeders, but this was no match even for those.

But sometimes, ever so rarely, I have moments of brilliance. They're so few and far between that I'm prouder of them than I have a right to be, mainly because I know that every other person on the planet already knew about this long before I did. But dang, if I wasn't excited about the idea that popped into my head one day when I was doing absolutely nothing and having a good time of it.

What if... just what if I took my grandpa's manure fork (it looks like a pitchfork) and skimmed across the top of the weed-infested soil, about 2-3 inches deep, loosening the soil so that I could sift out the weeds? This would be better than hoeing because if you cut some of those weeds, that just means if you don't remove all the pieces, you're screwed. Some weeds are like earthworms - cut them up and they make new ones from the pieces.

I tried my method on a defunct strawberry bed first. It was a small area and I wanted to use the plot for something else. Oh. My. Goodness. Why I had not thought of this earlier, I don't know, but I now don't look at the weediest of beds with disdain anymore. It's actually kind of fun, because it's a much quicker and easier way of removing large quantities of weeds.

What about the dandelions though? No fork is going to remove those that easily. No, I still had to pull those out individually (unless they were small), but by loosening the soil around them, it made it that much easier to pull them out and get all the roots, especially with soggy soil.

Until the rains came last night, I made quick work of the grape arbor area. I'll finish up when we dry up a little bit. It won't take me long to finish the grape arbor and then I'll move to the other side of the yard and take care of the mess in the Berry Barn.

Hallelujah! Who knew weeding could be so easy? (You don't really believe me, do you? Try it!)

Walking On Sunshine

I have this kind of love/hate relationship with dandelions and I'm betting you do too. They're the sort of thing that you can't live with because they irritate you so much and you can't live without them because they just won't let you.

At this time of year, they're fairly innocuous, and to be honest, they've got a lot going for them. We've just emerged from winter and seeing the first dandelion bloom pretty much makes each and every one of us smile, even if it's only on the inside. And one or two of them won't hurt anything anyway. Unless you let it go to seed.

One dandelion bloom produces 54 to 172 seeds and one plant will produce more than 2000 seeds. A single acre of dandelions is estimated to have the capability of producing 240,000,000 seeds a year. Not only that, dandelions do this all on their own because they are apomictic. In other words, no sex is required for them to reproduce. No wonder they pop up anywhere and everywhere.

Even though dandelions don't require pollination to produce seed and thus reproduce, they are well-visited by pollinators such as bumblebees, honeybees, butterflies, beetles, and moths. Dandelions are one of their earliest sources of nectar and far be it from me to deny the bees their breakfast.

But you could be enjoying dandelions for your breakfast too. Every part of the dandelion is edible, with the roots tasting a lot like parsnips, the young greens making a tasty leafy salad, and the blossoms as the basis for a delicate-tasting jelly. And there's wine.

Dandelions pack a punch when it comes to nutrients. According to nutritiondata.com and the USDA, “This food is low in saturated fat, and very low in cholesterol. It is also a good source of folate, magnesium, phosphorus and copper, and a very good source of dietary fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol), Vitamin K, Thiamine, Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, calcium, iron, potassium and manganese.”

One serving of dandelion greens (1 cup) has 35 calories, provides 112% of your daily value (DV) of Vitamin A, 32% of Vitamin C, 10% of calcium, and 9% of iron.

We've never had a perfect lawn. Far from it, for several reasons. First of all, we live on an acre that has a lot of grass. We don't weed and feed, and as far as dandelions go, I'm perfectly fine with seeing them peppered throughout the yard as yellow flowers. I don't mind clover either but that's a conversation for another day.

Do we battle dandelions, in spite of all the facts about them that are in the pro column? Sure, because we don't want an entire lawn of them and I don't want them in my gardens. We're not trying to raise them as a crop.

So we dig out the larger ones and we try to mow before they go to seed. We keep just enough around for grandkids to make daisy chains and bring us sunny bouquets. Just enough to provide pollinators with nutrition when it's in limited supply. Just enough to make us smile when we that's exactly what we need.

Kara, age 6, in 1986

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The article, "Walking On Sunshine," first appeared in my weekly newspaper column in the Paulding Progress, published in Paulding, OH.

Poison Ivy Patrol

This time of year brings something a little unpleasant in that no matter how careful I am, I manage to get poison ivy somewhere. I'll admit that I wasn't as careful as I could have been this spring though. I distinctly remember pulling weeds, getting into a nice rhythm, and just as I reached for that three-leaved one, it was like I was watching myself in slow motion. Even as I grabbed it - bare-handed (shame on me!) - I knew what it was, but couldn't stop myself.

I immediately went to the nearby swimming pool and washed my hands, rubbing them back and forth vigorously, and then went in the house to wash some more, this time with soap. I'm convinced this helped me avoid a nasty reaction, but I still had outbreaks on several fingers of both hands. I've got a small area on the inside of my left elbow and my left knee, too.

Poison Ivy growing in the sedum

In recent years, it seems that we've got more and more poison ivy seedlings that pop up throughout the summer. We both know well what it looks like, which helps when it comes to ridding our property of it. It has three notched leaves, a red stem when it's young, and nearly always is growing at the base of trees. I can count on finding it under the shagbark hickory.

Likely, the birds have eaten the berries from a different location, perhaps in a nearby woods or along the ditch banks, and then they excrete them as they rest and nest in our trees. The result is a new crop of poison ivy.

My method of removing the seedlings is this: I have a box of latex gloves just for unpleasant tasks. Pulling poison ivy certainly qualifies as one of those! I wear the gloves as I carefully pull the seedlings with my left hand, putting them then in my right as I walk around, trying to remember where I've seen the poison ivy during my gardening tasks.

Once I've gotten them all, I wad them up into a ball in my right hand, carefully pull that glove off inside out, with the seedlings inside, put that in my left hand, then also carefully pull off that glove inside out with the entire contents inside. I tie a knot in the top and toss it in the garbage.

Today, I found 13 seedlings. I wish I'd left that 14th one for today's poison ivy patrol.

Poison Ivy Facts

(from a previously published post)

• The offending substance in poison ivy is urushiol and it's so potent that only ¼ ounce of it would be enough to infect every single person on earth.
  
• Poison ivy only grows in the eastern United States, so you can get away from it by moving to California, where they have poison oak.
  
• One to five years is the normal length of time for urushiol to stay active on any surface.
  
• You cannot get poison ivy from another person unless they still have the urushiol on their skin. It also doesn't spread by opening the blisters. It's only spread by the oil from the plant itself.
  
• 90% of the population is allergic to urushiol.

I Grow Thistles on Purpose!

I'll never forget the summer I decided to wage war on the crop of thistles in our vegetable garden. I wasn't a real gardener back then; we just grew some vegetables every summer. Corn, green beans, carrots...the usual. Part of the garden was even left unplanted and that's where the thistles grew.

I knew enough about thistles to know that you'd better get the entire thistle out - tap root and all - or that nasty thing was going to grow right back, probably bigger and badder than it was in the first place. So, I got my trowel and set to work.

So intent was I on getting those nasty things out that I didn't realize what was happening as I plunged the trowel again and again into the hard clay soil, excavating each prickly plant out and tossing it onto a growing heap of them. Then all of a sudden, I stopped. I looked at the palm of my hand and there was the biggest blister I've ever had in my life, broken and bleeding. Silly me, I'd not worn gloves. The thistles had gotten the better of me and without even using their prickly defenses.

I want you to know, though - I never had a problem with thistles in the garden after that. I'm serious. But now...now I grow them on purpose. I'm serious about that, too.

Cleveland Botanical Garden Herb Garden - May 2009

Milk thistle in CBG Herb Garden

The last time I visited the Cleveland Botanical Garden, I saw milk thistle (Silybum sp.) growing there and I fell in love with it. It was in their beautiful herb garden. The patterns on its glossy leaves captivated me and even the prickly edges just added to its handsomeness. I didn't even know such a thing existed. I took pictures and filed it away in my mind as something to grow the next year.

As I was window shopping online for seeds last winter, I came across those milk thistle seeds at Nature's Crossroads. I ordered them and planted them. They grew and I loved this plant as much in my garden as I did in CBG's. We've had some really cold temperatures and my milk thistle plants still look good. They're a biennial and not all the plants bloomed this year, but I collected enough seed heads to assure that I'll have seed for planting it again next year, just in case none of it returns.

Globe thistle (Echinops ritro)

Why would people grow milk thistle in the first place? I mean, it's a thistle, for crying out loud. But people grow globe thistle (Echinops ritro) too, so there's room for ornamental thistles in a garden. Milk thistle is also an herb, with extract from the seeds used for treating liver diseases. All parts of milk thistle are edible and when its prickly parts are trimmed off, it makes a good substitute for spinach in salads.

I just think it's pretty.

Milk thistle in my garden - October 2010

Milk Thistle

Botanical name:  Silybum marianum
Hardiness:  Zone 5-9
Bloom time:  Early summer to late fall
Other:  Listed as a noxious weed in Arkansas. Self-seeds. Annual/biennial, depending on location.

Poison Ivy In the Garden

Besides the unusual weather of the summer, this year also brought an unwelcome visitor to the gardens.

Poison ivy.

The property where Our Little Acre is located was once a woods. It was mostly cleared about 35 years ago, to make the property more structure friendly. Our house was the first built (in 1975), with two others in the years that followed.

Poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) is commonly found growing in the woods here, as well as along roadsides and in ditches. So finding it on our property shouldn't really be a surprise, except that prior to this summer, we'd only encountered it a couple of times in the 32 years we've lived here.

Poison ivy growing among the sedum.

This year, we have found it at the base of trees and growing in the garden in at least ten different locations. Twice I found it growing right up through perennials that were just planted last year, such as Veronica 'Royal Candles.' How did it get there?

In almost all cases, the plant was small enough to pull out, but one had gotten a pretty good start, so Romie carefully put Roundup® on its leaves. I put on disposable latex gloves to pull out the smaller ones, then pulled the gloves off over the plants and tied off the wrists for disposal in the trash.

It had been at least a month since I'd found the last little plant, but tonight I found another one in Max's Garden. Since they are popping up randomly, this reinforces why it's a good idea to wear gloves while gardening!

Has anyone else had a problem with poison ivy this year? If so, has it been a new thug you've had to deal with or is it an ongoing nuisance for you? I'm puzzled as to why all of a sudden we've got poison ivy scattered around when we've lived here for so many years without it?

What's a Person To Do?

Here's the deal ... I love dandelions, really I do. Just not in my yard in vast quantities. But when there's a two-acre crop of them growing right next to you, it's really tough to keep them out of your yard and gardens.

I dig them out of the gardens, but how do you keep them under control in your yard without resorting to drastic means? Romie treats them individually with chemicals (:-O), but when you have an acre of property, that takes quite some time to do, especially when many of them need a second treatment.

So what's a person to do?

"How Do You Know That's a Weed, Mom?"

... asked Kara. We were walking in the garden and I reached down to pluck a weed from some annual seedlings. Kara is a novice gardener at this point and I'm mentoring her. When she asked me this question, I was forced to think of a good and properly informative answer. Something better than, "I just know."

When Romie and I were raising the girls, it was important to me that I try to explain things to them if at all possible, even when it came to the rules we set for them. I didn't want to be one of those parents that said, "Because I told you so." (Although I had to resort to that once in a great while.) Sometimes rules are easier to follow if you know the reasoning behind them. But back to the weedy question...

This caused me to really think about just how I do know if something is a weed or not. Sometimes I don't know. When in doubt, I leave it for awhile until it gets larger and it becomes more apparent that it's a weed. But some of them, I recognize for the evil green thugs they are, even as baby thugs.

Find the weed in this group of zinnia seedlings.

If you see what you might think is a weed coming up in a patch of flower seedlings, compare it to most of what surrounds it. Some flower seedlings have slight variations in appearance when they're young, but if the leaf shape and placement on the stem is different, it's probably a weed. Examine and compare the color and texture, too.

It could be a seedling of a totally different but desirable plant, like the flowers growing five feet away. But if you don't want it there, it joins the weedy class. Northern Sea Oats () were like that for me this year. While I like them growing in the spot where I planted them, I resent their wayward reseeding and out they come.

On the other hand, the volunteer petunias came up in the vegetable garden between the corn and the carrots and I let them stay there. They add a nice touch of color in an unexpected spot.

There are three different weeds* among these Cosmos sulphureus.

The longer you garden, the easier it is to recognize a weed for what it is. You'll see one kind appear all over the garden and you know you didn't plant anything everywhere. Once you've got even one gardening season under your belt, you'll be more familiar with your plants in all stages of growth and you'll know those aren't weeds. By the same token, most gardens sport the same weeds season after season, and you'll get to know those as well.

Sometimes, you just won't know until they get large enough to bloom or take on an ugly appearance. No one knows absolutely every time which is a weed and which isn't. That's why last spring, I babied an annual plant that seemingly lived through the winter in a pot that I'd had on the back deck all winter. It had held gazanias the year before.

I marveled at that gazania and told several people of its amazing survival story. When it started growing again once spring's warmer temperatures arrived, I began watering it regularly and soon it was looking vibrant and began putting up a flower stalk. It was then that my bubble was burst and I felt a tad bit silly. My gazania was, in actuality, a dandelion.

In my defense, the leaves of a gazania look somewhat similar to those of a dandelion:









Gazania

Dandelion

At the end of the day, you will eventually get better at discerning the weeds from the plants you want to keep. But you will also pull your share of flower seedlings. And you just might end up cultivating a weed.

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*Clover, grass, and a seedling of Cypress Vine (Ipomoea quamoclit).