#4 - An inventory of weeds
Garden journal entry
One of my struggles with writing and documenting my garden is that it never feels like I’m doing as much in my garden every week as everyone else on social media seems to be doing.
While I understand that social media is a highlight reel, unless people are constantly recycling old photos and videos from previous gardening years and passing it off as what they do in a single week or day in the garden- how else are they producing so much damn gardening content all the time?
I always think I haven’t completed enough tasks or made enough big transformations in my garden to share. I’m trying to get over that by forcing myself to stick to a weekly garden journal here on Substack. Garden updates, big and small, all progress and failures shared every Sunday.
So what to write about when my gardening time was limited last week because… life? I give you, an inventory of weeds I found in my flower beds this week.
For this list I am choosing to define a weed as a plant that I did not plant in my flowerbed or that is taking over/smothering other plants. Some things on this list might not be considered a weed in your area or by you.
Without further ado; the weeds I happily yanked from my flowerbeds this week:
#1 - Cow vetch
As much as I hate this weed; it’s also one of the most satisfying to yank out. The roots are pretty shallow so it comes out easily. It forms a bit of a mat, so you can get a large clump cleared with little effort. I’ll admit when it’s in flower, the little purple flowers are kind of pretty. But this plant just smother’s and chokes out my Hostas so its got to go.
#2 - Dandelions
I don’t hate dandelions in quite the same way so many people do. I actually think they’re pretty when they colonize a lawn. My own lawn included. Every spring our front lawn is dandelion heaven and we make zero attempts to control them. They die out in a couple of weeks and they’re good food for early pollinators so it’s not worth the effort for us to try and control them. I don’t need a weed free front lawn, I’m not the Queen. But I draw the line when they start to encroach on my flowerbeds. Their taproots can get really deep and strong and they’re difficult to pull out without breaking the damn stem and leaving half the root still in the ground.
#3 - Quack grass
I hate this stuff with a passion. It takes over and makes a flowerbed look unkempt in a hurry. It’s hard to get out by the root without digging it and it’s ugly.
#4 - Evening primrose
This is one that a lot of people wouldn’t consider a weed. I don’t technically either; more of a nuisance. When we bought our house 12 years ago I pulled a lot of the flowers out as the previous owners had 80% annual flowers in the flowerbeds up against the front of the house. I love a pretty annual to fill in a spot here or there but there was zero chance I was going to replant an entire flowerbed from scratch every year. My first goal was to flip the two original flowerbeds to almost all perennials. My mom gave me 4 single stems of some yellow evening primrose from her garden. I didn’t do any research; I planted them and have regretted it ever since. They spread like wildfire and leave behind ugly dead hard stems when they’re done flowering. I like the look of them en masse… somewhere else.
In addition to some light weeding, I managed to:
Plant one of my patio containers with 6 celery plants and 2 parsley plants.
Cut back & dug out all the dead lemon grass from a second patio container.
Laid down more tarp in another section of my veggie garden that isn’t going to be planted this year.
Purchased 10 bags of garden soil, in anticipation of filling in 2 metal raised beds that will eventually be the start of my strawberry patch.
Moved said bags of soil, while holding my baby, to the garden from my car… where they have been sitting unopened since I put them there several days ago. The bags of soil, not the baby. 🤷♀️
That’s all I was able to check off my gardening list last week.
Happy Gardening,
Until next Sunday,
Jess