The Good Sore

Ok, how does this last picture fit in with the rest?  Reward baby!

I’ve been concentrating on getting the garden going and looked over at the fruit garden and herb bed and went WOW!  How did those weeds get that tall?  It seems that weeds grow about 50 times faster then any other living thing.

So, the weed patches were 2 feet tall in among my fruit bushes and vines.  I bought this Earth Mat because it looks like it may work.  It’s not plastic, kind of more canvas and thicker.  I tried a kind of landscape cloth about 15 years ago and it looked like I planted a blanket of grass there.  Didn’t stop any weeds.  I think it had a bunch in it.  I’ve used plastic with newspapers on top with mulch and it lasts about 3 or 4 years then needs replaced, so I don’t use mulch anymore.  For me, it has seemed to encourage the growth of weeds after the first year as the mowing throws a myriad of seeds into the mulch.  So, I’ll give this a try and see how it works for me.  My friend Pam stopped mulching her     flower beds a few years ago and just takes a hoe to the weeds.  Sounded like a good idea to me too, so I tried it last year when the last of my mulch had turned into fine dirt.  Works pretty good.

The highbush cranberries are something that my grandparents in Maine always had when I went to visit them.  They made the most amazing cranberry jelly that you can imagine.  It’s for toast, not the kind you have at Thanksgiving.  I’ve tried making it out of the cranberries from the store, and it is pretty good, but not as good as these.

I worked about 6 hours on this bed, pulling weeds, jumping when the cat grabs me from under the bushes, crawling under plants, wrestling with the poison ivy plants (thank goodness for lye soap), fighting giant wolf spiders (ugh), rolling around with 50 foot long pieces of matting, lugging rocks to hold down the matting, picking sticks out of my hair and hoping to goodness to not find a tick on me later.  The next day, I had a hard time getting up and around because of using so many muscles that I normally don’t.  If I would follow my 18 month old granddaughter around and do everything she does, I would be in great shape.  My husband says that round is a shape (I hope he’s talking about himself).

The good sore is when I can look and see all the good that I’ve done for the day.  I can see progress and some control in that wild kingdom out there.  Yes, I may moan and groan for a day or two, and maybe even get a “good job, honey”.

And that’s where the giant banana split comes in.  Rewarding myself for all the hard work.  The great thing is, I’m only two-thirds of the way done with that bed.  Then I turned around and looked over my shoulder at the flower beds.  Yikes!  More weeds…

An add on, January 2019 – The Earth Mat that I put on has not allowed ANY weeds to grow up through it.  I am amazed and buy now for flower beds too.  You can order from Berlin Seeds in Millersburg, Ohio.  It is Amish owned, so you can call and get a catalog to order.  330.893.2091, or Bing it for the address.