Sunday 5 April 2009

This Week I Have Been Mostly Weeding



In the blink of an eye the vegetable garden by the house has become overrun with weeds. Well to be honest they’ve been there for ages but as they grew so early the ground was far to wet to hoe. Now the decent weather is here they have gone to seed. The two main weeds on this area are groundsel and bittercress, which fires its seed as soon as you touch the plant.

Because of the number of ripe and ripening seed heads, hoeing was out of the question along with rotorvating. Hand weeding I decided was the best option, to try and remove as many seed heads as possible. It is taking ages but hopefully it will be worth it by reducing the number of plants I will have to deal with for the rest of the year.

Each 30m row takes about 2 hours to do but having done each bit and seeing the clear row is very rewarding. I’m about halfway down or to put it in a more positive light I’m half finished.



Here’s a picture to show all’s well with the world today.


Snowy is also back to her supervisor self. She eventually decided that the comfort of her chair and umbrella (as shown here) would be better but it’s so nice to have her behaving ‘normally’ again.

This week I’ve also blown a few eggs.


They are either for Christmas decorations or next Easter, as I’ve no chance of doing anything with them before next weekend. Doing them now made sense, at least at the time. I had the eggs and I wanted to make a couple of quiches for summer picnics. One useful thing about having the alpacas is that I have various syringes and needles that proved very useful. Having blown the eggs, I gave them a wash in a dilute bleach solution and using the syringe I was able to inject the solution into the eggs and wash the insides too.



10 comments:

softinthehead said...

OK you have put me to shame - I will get out and start raking my garden. WOW lady - that is some weeding task you have set yourself. As always I am humbled by your diligence :)

Elizabethd said...

Your quiches look delicious.
As to weeding, what a task you have, but I agree it is no good rotovating weeds in, you'd have a huge crop next year!

Mickle in NZ said...

What a job, and what great results you're getting.

Beautiful quiches. And a joy to see a very happy Snowy out "supervising". A very relaxed looking cat stretched out in the sunshine.

Zeb is snuggled down bang in the middle of the bed, waiting for me. He has already spent all evening sleeping there after a hard day's snoozling.

21C today with blustery wind and horizontal rain showers. Hail forecast for Thursday. That's autumn here. Umbrellas are always useless in Wellington.

care and huggles, Michelle xxxx, raucous purrrrrrumbling from Zebby

The Squirrel Family said...

Wow i thought we had a lot of weeds!

Well done you ..........you must ache all over

Quiche looks good too!

Shaz

Anonymous said...

I started my weeding yesterday and I'm creaking like an old floorboard this morning.

Glad to see your cat is now in a healthy position to help with your garden,

GG

Barbara Martin said...

Deb, things are looking up...your cat is stretching in the sun; your quiches look scrummy and that weeding, wow.

Living the Dream said...

Coming back from the UK and seeing our weeds nearly a foot high made us want to cry. It is going to take us ages. What a vegetable plot, how on earth do you keep on top of everything? Snowy looks as though he is enjoying himself bless him.

jimmycrackedcorn said...

Still weeding? I hope things are going OK in your world.

Stuart and Gabrielle said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Frances said...

Just checking in to see if everything is well with you? You must be very busy at this time of year on your land. Your quiches look absolutely delicious! Hope you've made a few more of them since! fx