Saturday, August 18, 2012

Week ending 8/18 Garden Update

I spent all day in the garden.  It has been very hot of late, and today temperatures cooled.  It was great to be outside and working.

Hey, what happens if you totally weed your garden and then you don't weed it for a few weeks in the summer?  What if you just wanted to weed everything all at once?  How long would that take?  I can tell you that in my case, it takes 4 hours and 45 minutes. That includes everything:  Herb bed at Leo's, front bed, parking strip, side yard, potato patch at Leo's, my yard, Emilia's yard.  It was a marathon session, but I didn't hate it.

Here is Emilia's backyard.  The double dug beds are looking pretty good, but the rest is a solid carpet of weeds.
 
These weeds were growing among the beans I planted.  "I wonder what they grow into?" I mused to my friend.  She told me and told me to pull them.  After two weeks, they were much bigger and I did.
 
Post weeding.
 
Here's the side yard.  With the pathways I use the "scrape"method where I just take my hoe and scrape off the top layer of weeds, ignoring the roots.  It means they come back, but I just scrape again.  Perhaps someday I'll get some ground cover down.
 
The rain garden hasn't been weeded all summer long.  It was the one thing I didn't get to last time.  The plants are happier now that they don't have so much competition.
 
Harvest!  Not bad.  Not bad at all.

What else did I do?
1 hour, 47 minutes planting. I put in a mustard cover crop (which I have intentions of also eating if it sprouts) on the side yard and emptied old packets of collard seeds into the the newly double dug beds in Emilia's yard.  I started a bunch of lettuce, kale, and chard for fall harvest.  It's like I think I don't have to go back to work on Monday.

I spent 13 minutes writing up what I had planted.
I spent 8 minutes putting things away.

Total time this week:  6 hours, 53 minutes  All on one day.  Eeek.

Music.  I didn't want to deal with the ipod but I had the following songs stuck in my head all day:
"It's Time" Imagine Dragons:


"Somebody that I used to know" Gotye
There is no escaping this song this summer.


Everybody Talks .  Neon Trees


4 comments:

balyien said...

The gardens look great! I'm so impressed with your work. You always make gardening seem like such a worthwhile, satisfying endeavor.

Embarrassing fun fact: Until about two weeks ago, I thought that Gotye song, which I hear all the time at work, was actually sung by Sting. /feels old

Matt said...

It sounds like Sting, so I can understand.

Patricia said...

When I was just hearing the song wafting over the land as I went about my business I too assumed it was Sting. Then someone posted this video on Facebook and I had the same, "Huh. Not Sting" reaction.
http://sfist.com/2012/07/13/afternoon_palate_cleanser_two_guys.php

Sara K. said...

I like your weeding soundtrack. Even if it was an ear-worm on continuous play!

9 posts read and commented on and 14 woogly letters typed: happily feeling more connected now!