Earlier in the week I was looking to take a day off from my gardening chores. It had become increasingly hot and I needed a break. I went outside to retrieve the morning paper and via a light, cooling wind I heard the weeds approving of my decision, encouraging me to take the rest of the week off. I knew what I had to do.
After breakfast I donned a green, floppy hat, yellow gloves for my hands and grabbed a large bucket. The bed of asparagus ferns were attacked first. Their tall, lacy forms lean away from an adjacent stone greenhouse foundation that front about-to-flower Canadian thistle, mugwort and garlic mustard. The delicate fern fronds tickle my face as I need to get low to pull the accompanying weeds out of the soil.
Next on my list are the wild mustard and jewel weed plants that have taken up residency in my center beds. I keep pulling these similar-looking intruders weekly yet they are replaced by new babies in increasing numbers after each exercise. A variety of grasses continue to invade regardless of how often I pull them.
As the moisture begins to saturate my shirt, I examine a huge purslane that I have just pulled. This is the year of purslane in my vegetable beds as they have made a home in each one. This one’s typically fat and succulent green leaves have become somewhat desiccated and brown at the tips, no doubt due to the heat and lack of water we have had over the last week. I will let some stay, reserving them for future salads.
In this heat, there are few ground insects to be seen as they have borrowed into the cool, damp soil preferring to emerge in the cool of the night to do their damage.
I try to pull weeds before they flower and seed but in some cases they have made that transformation too quickly. There is lots of nipplewort that has seeded next year’s crop and the dandelions have long since sent their babies into the sky. Plantain is flowering and I have been cutting down the pale green flower and seed spikes prior to pollination with the hope that I can minimize next year’s offspring.
There are some weeds that never stop, such as bindweed, regardless of how often they are pulled. This invasive tricks the unaware gardener with its pretty morning glory, bell-shaped white flower and arrowhead-shaped leaf. But it will take over and smother plants if left alone. I have been able to contain it within a 40-by-10-foot patch of pachysandra for the last 4 years. I try to pull it out by its thin, hairy white roots but know at best I am leaving pieces that will continue to send up shoots in the weeks to come.
Grape vine invades my garden from my neighbor’s patch and must be macheted every few weeks as its broad leaves and thin dark stems stealthily creep under and over the separating fence. Its babies are also seeded in other areas that must be patrolled continuously.
Buckets are filled with greenery and emptied into the compost heap; Juana admonishes me to have a rest and drink of cool water. I agree and sit on the cool flagstone stoop, which darkens with the sweat that has saturated my shorts and shirt.
I consider stopping as it is hot and I have done enough for the day. An agreement is delivered to me in the light wind by the remaining weeds as I sip iced water. I know what I have to do.
