What did you do in the garden today?

[dunnmom]

Oh, I was curious. When I pull my bean plants, should I leave a few to help protect the emerging sprouts? Maybe I can trim them back a little to thin the canopy. What do ya'll think?

 

[pennyJo1960]

I wouldn't but that is jut me give all the nutrients to the new ones net them if needed

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Today we caught and removed another groundhog in the garden. This one was the big one, the mama. I asked around and it turns out our neighborhood has a really big groundhog problem. There's dozens of them in the neighborhood. We've seen a couple on the sides of the road, too.
The husky has been naughty about crying wolf about the groundhogs lately because we've been wanting to get rid of them. She cries any time she's bored and we just let her out to run just in case, and she just pokes around and there's nothing out there. She learned that crying gets he outside so lately she's been crying at nothing. So today and yesterday we stopped letting her cry for and would scold her when she cried wolf.

But today she cried and I told her no and tried to kick her off her watching spot (a bench near the window), but she growled at me and ran out the back door (which doesn't latch well) even though I told her no and she knows she's not allowed to go that way without permission. Big dog and I followed her out and the dogs managed to pin the big groundhog under the rabbit hutch. Luckily, they didn't have to tousle with it. We managed to kick it out from under the hutch into a corner where we could swiftly and safely dispatch it same as the last one, all without the dogs having to get too involved which kept them nice and safe.

So that's one fewer groundhog to eat down all our plants. Before we got to it, it devoured half of a crown pumpkin vine, every recovering cauliflower, a few recovering hot peppers, our meager spinach crop and some kale. And we also have some holes to brick up under our fence. Bleh.

On a MUCH happier note, I found some on-sale onion sets and brought home 80 for $1.50 to try to go into some gaps in the gardens, especially the potato box that won't recover. I also found some bee balm which is a plant I have been looking for FOREVER. I couldn't find a single local supplier with seeds anywhere, but I got to nab one of the live plants.
I almost picked up some citronella, but decided that since we have a bunch of lemon balm we didn't need it. I also got some cucumbers because mine just won't seem to sprout no matter what I do.
So hopefully the gaps in the garden will get filled with productive plants and my beans, peas and peppers will come back.

 

[lillithlix]

I've been pulling morning glory and ivy off my fence and garage.

I hate morning glory, so much. It's a seriously invasive weed here where I live.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Someone brought it to Washington state also we fight it all the time

 

[dunnmom]

Wild morning glories are called bindweeds, right? We have a few different types of it in our yard and gardens. Impossible to get rid of... Can be controlled to a point.

 

[pennyJo1960]

that is about it we have that and this other one I call velcro it is so sticky
we have a wild part of property and 90 year old apple scrub trees and blackberry
the velcro actually would itself around with the morning glory

 

[dunnmom]

that is about it we have that and this other one I call velcro it is so sticky
we have a wild part of property and 90 year old apple scrub trees and blackberry
the velcro actually would itself around with the morning glory

Yeah, we've got a velcro weed, too. It nearly took over the entire perimeter of the back yard last year. My hens will eat the stuff.

 

[lillithlix]

Is that cleavers you're talking about. That stuff sticks like Velcro. So do the seed pods. Its annoying but a pretty alright edible.

If wild morning glory is called bindweed, I can see why. I rolled a carpet of morning glory and kaikuyu out of the corner of my yard this afternoon. I started off pulling it off the fence, and just kept going. Its taken over a good chunk of that corner of the yard. Horrible stuff.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Yesterday I tied up 2/3 beds worth of tomatoes (the bigger two) and today I have some generic lawn maintenance to do. Cutting weeds, raking, moving sticks around, etc. We got a letter from the city about our tall weeds. I like some of those 'weeds', dangit! A lot of them are native frost asters - a spreading plant, but native, edible for the livestock and awesome for the bees! At the end of the year they die back into dry sticks that are great for weaving, burning or building light garden bed walls. I'm gonna put garden bed edging around some parts of it and some mulch and call it a native flower bed.