June:  The Month of Weeds

            This week is all about weeding.  The straw mulch that I put down this year had a few more seed heads than usual and they are all popping up.  Luckily the weeds pull up easily and they’ve been cleared out we should have very few weed problems the rest of the summer.  June is always the month of weeds.  The temperature, rainfall and time elapsed since the ground prep before planting make the perfect trifecta for weed thriving bliss. All you can do is get on your knees and slog through it. 

Thriving Anise Hyssop

When I first started farming I hated weeding and as “lowest man on the totem pole” you aren’t qualified to do much else.  My first farm manager would hound us to move faster with sayings like “God blessed you with two hands instead of one so that you could weed faster.”

Our very first melon in the hoop house

Now, however, I find that I like it, the work is very Zen and methodical, and I encourage my employees the same way.  You know that you are making your plants happy.  Weeds rob nutrients, water and even sunlight when they get really out of control. When the weeding is finished the garden looks so clean with all of those neat orderly rows of vegetables marching their way to the kitchen table. 

            Besides weeding, I am seeding lima beans, edamame beans, ‘lazy wife greasy beans’ (a southern heirloom delicacy), the 3^rd generation of carrots and haricoverts, more beets, and a new generation of cucumbers to go into the hoop house next month.  We are picking the absolute last of the cherries, as well as basil, squash, squash blossoms cucumbers, fennel, fava beans, beets, swiss chard, other herbs and mini onions. The first currant tomatoes are starting to ripen, though we are still far from a real harvest, and the first planting of haricovert beans are about to start flowering. 

The first couple of ripening current tomatoes

Our cucmbers are big enough for picking

 

German Lunchbox Cukes are slightly sweet and very crisp

Happy weeding to all the gardeners out there.  When it starts to get you down, just think about how much better your plants will feel when it is done, and if you use both hands you will get it done faster!