The Garden of Weedin'

Saturday was a good day to be in the garden.  I had a number of things on my list to get done and it started with weeding.  In the winter, we have a lot of winter weeds that come up.  I try to pull them, shake off the dirt, and throw them over the fence to the cows.  They are grateful beneficiaries of the winter weeding task.  Even the chickens absolutely LOVE to eat the weeds I throw over the fence. They must stay on their toes, though, to avoid being trampled by 900 pound cows.

One of the things growing between the rows of the garden that many people call weeds is clover. Clover is actually a legume that is working hard setting nitrogen in the soil that will be used by our Spring garden crops to grow.  It also shades the rows, preserving moisture in the soil and shading out other pernicious weeds.  Of course the cows and chickens love to eat it, so I'll pull off some of the tops to give them a little snack while leaving the roots and enough of the plant to continue growing.

White Dutch Clover

This is a great cover crop.  Best of all, it's one we don't need to buy seed and sow.  It comes up on its own in the garden each year.  It's the gift the keeps on giving.

We do have other things growing in the garden around this time that are not beneficial like clover. I'm almost embarrassed to show you the next picture.  This is my garlic patch that was planted back in October.

There's garlic in my weed patch

I have a 30 foot row of garlic, planted 3 wide.  Over the course of the winter, weeds pop up and crowd out the garlic.  Garlic doesn't do well with weed pressure. Today's the day to get something done about it.  There's no easy way to do this.  It is a job done on your knees pulling weeds out by hand.  You must be careful pulling the weeds so you don't uproot the garlic plants.

I pulled a nice pile of weeds that the cows promptly disposed of and then proceeded to beg for more. Once done, I broadcast some composted chicken manure by hand on the newly weed-free garlic row to feed the garlic. Then I went around the hay ring and picked up a bunch of hay that the wasteful cows were trampling instead of eating.  I mulched all around the garlic, making a thick mat of hay to crowd out and discourage any weed growth, while pulling the garlic leaves up through the hay.

After the weeds are gone...

What a difference, huh?  I like things like this where you can immediately see the fruits of your labors.  A nice soaking rain will activate the chicken litter and make the garlic jump out of the ground and get a nice dark green color.  The weeds beneath the thick mat of hay won't get sunlight and won't be able to penetrate the canopy of mulched hay and cause future problems for our garlic.  We normally harvest it in the June-July time frame.

Weeding is a necessary evil - one that only the cows really enjoy.  Once that was out of the way, it was time to do some harvesting.  We'll talk about that tomorrow.  It was a bumper crop!