Out, out damn weed! (And other adventures)

Our mission this weekend was to rid our garden of weeds.

Or, as many weeds as humanly (and non-chemically) possible.

Which means a lot of hand weeding. And a lot of mulch. Luckily, we heard about some free mulch that would be available to anyone with enough gumption to shovel the stuff and not enough sense to know better.

This particular mulch was made from the debris left by the spring tornadoes. It was good to know that a tragedy (or, actually, several tragedies) can become something positive for everyone.



We brought a box of garbage bags and loaded them with mulch. This mulch was great and seemed to consist mostly of downed trees. While we were shoveling (or, I should say, while Adam was shoveling and I was holding the bag) we would see a piece of siding every once in a while that would remind us that some of this mulch wasn't just from trees. Some of it was from people's houses.


And did I mention it was hot? Not just the air and the sun but the mulch itself. You could feel the heat radiating off of it as we (again, Adam) shoveled it into the bags.

We took the mulch back to the garden and got a lot of use out of it! We were even able to mulch our seating area, which seemed rather important since we plan to spend an evening or two out there with wine bottle(s) in tow.




If you think the transformation in our seating area is dramatic, you should see the rest of the garden! I only hope we did it in time for our bush beans, which are looking pretty haggard.

After we weeded and mulched, we fertilized everything since it had been at least 3 weeks since the last time we added fertilizer. We did this with the same water-diluted fish emulsion fertilizer as before.

I'll do a farm-photo-catch-up post tomorrow!

Fried Catfish, Jell-O Molds and a Sunset

There was a big par-tay at the farm on Saturday and all plot-owners and plot-owners' families were invited. Attendance was roughly 150!

A local catfish restaurant supplied the fried fish, chicken, beans, coleslaw and hush puppies while dessert was potluck.

Here's the thing. Despite the fact that I was born in Arkansas, have a very strong southern accent when I drink and have been known to belt out the lyrics to country music songs, I have never in my life been more southern than I was at this party.

For dessert, I brought a Jell-O mold.

In my defense, it wasn't really a mold. It was just a cake pan. But it was Jell-O. With fruit in it. And, if you took a poll of the people in attendance, they would say it was actually a "salad" and not a "dessert."

On account of the fruit, of course.

But it was good. And I don't even like Jell-O.

And farmers sure know how to party. I think we were the only people there who did not bring a cooler full of beer, wine, liquor or a mixture of the three. And that was only because we don't have a cooler.

I lamented with the man next to me about weeds - crab grass in particular. I saw some enormous hats on the more genteel-looking women. A man behind me had a corncob pipe. We talked about the bandits who had attacked some plots earlier in the week (a jar of twist ties, a watering can and our citronella candle were among the missing.)

Needless to say, Adam and I were the youngest people there by half (not counting the kids of some of the plot owners) but we had a good time.

We took a quick walking tour of the farm after the party. It is interesting to see the trends that take hold in certain sections. One section of the farm is all about black plastic as a weed deterrent. In that same section, farmers use a substance called Sevin heavily on all of their plants.

In another section, plot-owners have doubled-up on the fencing in order to make it extra high. This section is closest to the surrounding forest and, according to rumors, has a higher deer population.

And, I'm proud to say that in our section several plot-owners have used bamboo poles intermittently throughout their fence to add strength. (And, as it turns out, a roosting point for red-wing black birds.)

After the party and farm tour, we were reluctant to go back to our un-air-conditioned apartment so we went to nearby Pinnacle Mountain instead.

And got there just in time to see the sun setting over Lake Maumelle and the Ouachita Mountains.

Everybody's mulching for the weekend

Adam and I went in search of mulch last week. Apparently, when "weekend farmers" such as ourselves decide to take the weekend off, the weeds come out of hibernation and create a ruckus in the garden.

Since neither one of us likes to weed, and Round-Up is just not an option, we knew we needed to get some mulch down soon to prevent this from becoming a weekly problem.

However, we are cheap. After several years of living paycheck to paycheck we still cringe at the thought of spending money on something we can get for free. So, we went around our neighborhood looking for bagged leaves.

Through FreeCycle, we heard about a guy who had some yard waste on his curb. But it seemed his yard waste included waste-waste as well, judging by the amount of flies in the vicinity.

We were about to call off the search when we saw two (two!) houses with several beautiful black bags out front. We hesitantly stopped at the first one, peeked in one of the bags, and were delighted to find leaves.

Magnolia leaves.

Quite possibly the prettiest leaf around, if this southern girl has anything to say about it.

We filled our car to the brim and made our way to the farm.


Somewhere between the roach crawling across my arm and the realization that we literally could not see the forest for all the leaf bags, we discovered the importance of owning a truck.

Not right now of course.

But some time. The future farm of our dreams includes a future non-gas-guzzling truck. And, while I'm populating our dream with specific items, I'd like to include a dog.

Several dogs actually.

And I want one of them to be tall enough that, when he is standing next to me, I can rub his ear without bending over.

First Planting!

While Adam worked on re-tilling our rows, I set about preparing the "round mounds" that would be the home for our squashes, melons and cucumbers. The soil may look hard and cake-y on the top but it is so soft that working it with a shovel and hoe is no problem.

First of all, I broke up the ground surrounding our previously formed mounds. I took this dirt and added it to the mounds. (We have 4 mounds in each section x 4 sections = 16 mounds.)


After forming the mounds, I then sifted through the dirt by hand and pulled out the grass weeds. This sounds a little crazy, but it was actually a lot of fun! I always loved to play in dirt when I was a kid and not much has changed since those days. Plus, I got a good look at all the little bugs and critters living in our dirt.

At the end of the day, I had a bucket o' weeds.





Before I continue, I should say that I'm not a crazy weeder. It isn't something that I necessarily enjoy and it isn't something I think is always important. Overall, I don't think weeds are "bad" and Adam shares this sentiment so I can't see us spending a lot of time weeding. However, our little zucchini and melon plants were raised from seedlings and weren't doing too well....so I wanted to give them the best chance possible.

All that being said, this garden is, in many ways, an experiment for us. We certainly don't know everything there is to know and we hope to learn a lot along the way. By mid-summer we could be reformed anti-weeders with an arsenal of Round-Up at our disposal.

But I doubt it.

After preparing our "mounds" with a compost/peat mixture, I gingerly put our little plants in the mounds. As I said before, these had been raised from seedlings but had started to get weak and spindly in recent days, despite being put out in the sun for a good part of the day. I planted them pretty deep so that their weak bits were under the dirt. A storm was coming in a day and I didn't want them to be torn to shreds.

We made little zucchini "volcanoes" in the middle of the mounds and watered them with a mixture of liquid fertilizer (organic) and water.

Then we wished them luck and headed home.



Next up: Potatoes and Onions!