Another Sunday in the Garden

What a beautiful Sunday morning. The air was almost cool. The garden has been transformed by many hands and much mulch. The dark brown shredded bark makes a fine contrast to the bright green grass that surrounds the Peace Patch. We hauled in a hose from our back yard and walked the garden to see what was up. There is corn in the Three Sisters garden (the eldest sister) and a few more sprouts in the starter pots ready to be transplanted.
There are other things sprouting as well, too early for me to tell what they are, but they are sprouting. The kids and I turned the soils in the first four beds running south from the herb bed. Then with a pitchfork and a steel rake, we tried to level it out, leaving an ever so slight bulge in the center, to prevent pooling. Maxim filled the water can a dozen times, hauling water to all of the starters and to the sweet potato and watermelon and corn and gourd and okra. Noah helped rake the beds and took some photos you can see here and here.

There is an old farmer's saying that goes something like this: "A job done completely saves time and work." With that in mind, we may want to redouble our efforts on the sedge problem this week. The sedge plant is deceptive. It looks innocent enough. And it seems to come out quickly if you pull it at its base. But dig down along side its root. You will find that you have to dig quite far. And even then,
pull gently so as not to break the white root stem. These are living things, these sedge plants, and they have a clever life support system. This is what you're after. Buried deep in the ground is a brown spidery root bulb. You want to pinch the root bulb between your fingers and pull gently. You will ultimately remove a fairly long stem. We get the bulbs out now, or we fight sedge all through the fall. The same is true in the mulch in the places where we didn't put cardboard. Sedge is sprouting from its root bulbs.

The best part about the Peace Patch is the kind of day like today. All the potential. All the planning and ideas. And the first real evidence of the work ahead. We are off to a good beginning. Bring on the elementary school kids!