Sow There!

Recycling
My coworker Sally is a frequent source of gardening inspiration. She has a rather large yard. Each summer about the time I am lamenting that I don’t have enough tomatoes to make salsa to freeze for the winter, she brings in a big box of tomatoes. Often, because she knows it will delight me, she gives me first pick before putting the box in the lunch room.
Invariably I sneak back to the lunch room at the end of the day and take a few handfuls more.
I don’t want to be greedy, but if no one has snagged them by the end of the day, I figure they’re fair game.
This week Sally brought me a present of her leftover seeds from last year. Many of them are tomato seeds, but there’s also squash, sweet peppers and cayenne.
She was sort of apologetic that they are seeds from last year. However, there is something great about that. If they don’t sprout, it’s not my fault. And if they do, added bonus.
My plan is to plant them out in the yard without fussing with the peat pots, the windowsill and worrying about whether they are kept wet. If they grow, they grow.

Round-about
On to the dilemma.
With Tommy helping in the yard, we have double the energy to cultivate the yard. That means we can stretch out a bit and add more plants. With more space we could try pumpkins, more squash plants, try again at cucumbers.
Funny how you don’t notice some things unless you have a plan. Thursday morning we were looking around the yard and noticed how much Velcro weed there was growing out by the end of the lot. The weed is also interspersed throughout the established plants in the yard.
Velcro weed is the vernacular for that weed that sticks to your pant leg and is spread from here to China by the tiniest bit of it dangling off the tail of neighborhood cats.
Literally, we could spend 14 days with hoes in hand, getting callouses and needing back rubs to eradicate it.
I felt badly to even be thinking about it but I mentioned the word this week, almost in a whisper: Roundup.
We looked at each other a little shocked but intrigued. I pride myself in composting, recycling, and only using slug bait when I’m completely at wits end.
But thinking about expanding the garden area it seemed so practical just to nuke it one time.
I called up Fabulous Phil, who is back from his world travels and renowned for his organic gardening.
Phil assured me I wasn’t a bad person for having this thought. It’s not like I was contemplating robbing the local minimart or TPing the house of those neighbors who didn’t invite us to their really fun, loud, late party.
But Phil also gave words of encouragement for finding other ways to deal with the seemingly overwhelming stand of weeds. He quoted his grandmother who like to say, “If you have to eat an elephant, start nibbling on the toe.”
Phil said its just a matter of starting a little bit at a time.
“Why don’t you and Tommy just drink some coffee every morning and putting in 20 minutes.”
Well, in reality, its not me who pulls the weeds. I’m more the creative person behind the gardening, meaning I like to putz around, stick seeds in the ground and let him dig the big holes and get mud on his knees.
Sally also had some advice, to lay down black plastic or use about three sheets of newspaper on the offending area. Our paper sells the ends of the giant newspaper rolls for a nominal fee. These can be secured with rocks and deprive the weeds of sunlight until they die.
I’m still contemplating my options and am curious to hear what readers have to say about this very important issue.