Dandelions: Part 1

Dandelions are one of the most recognizable plants throughout the world.  A hardy perennial that are well-established growers worldwide, dandelions have deep roots and grow throughout the year in many climates.

I've seen various ways to get rid of dandelions - pouring boiling water at the roots, pouring vinegar at the roots, burning them with a blow torch-  but I have my preferred method.  I've noticed that big, fat earthworms love living around the roots of dandelions, and since I perfer not to harm the worms, I don't use any of the above methods.  When I need to get rid of dandelions, I've learned that hand pulling each one is the best method.  The tricks are to get as much of the root as possible, pull them when they are young, and pull them before they go to seed and spread.

There are lots of tools available specifically for dandelion removal.  I use a sturdy trowel or my trusty Dewit weeding tool.

 After finding the weed you'd like to pull, isolate the top of the taproot, where the root top is flush with the ground. 

Insert your trowel or weeding tool right next to the rood.

Push straight down, or slightly away from the plant.  If you push down in toward the root, you may cut through and break the root, making it harder to remove the entire root system.

Once you're down several inches, start to gently loosen the root system.

Ideally, you will remove the entire taproot, with the veins and all.  And no harm done to the happy worms!

Join me next week while I share a medicinal way to use the roots.

weeding

oh weeding. the bane of every gardener's existence (am i right?). yesterday i dedicated a good three hours to weeding our existing front garden (looks a lot better than the last time you saw it, right?). i figured i'd better get that one under control before i start a whole new garden space. i have some kind of aggressive, spreading weed that has a very complex root system underneath the soil and i just can't seem to get ahead of it. i do my best to pull up the roots, but it's hard! during the hours i was working on this space, i alternated from feeling meditative and calm, to overwhelmed that i would never get all these weeds out, and as soon as i did, they'd just grow back anyways.

i'm definitely not anti-weed, as i'm not concerned about having a pristine looking garden space at all. really the only reason i'm concerned about the weeds is when they start choking out the plants that i want to thrive. weeding out this space made me realize how much space is still available to be filled in, so i'm hoping to transplant some things from my backyard garden areas (which are overcrowded) to the front here. maybe having less open space will deter the weeds? i'm also planning to put down a good amount of mulch.

so what to do you do about weeds? my go-to tools are just a trowel and a hand cultivator. what tools are your favorites? do you use weed-blocking landscaping fabric? i'm not a big fan, but that's just my preference. i'm open to any and all advice and experience you have!

three sisters and a few thoughts on weeding

about 1/4 of our field garden is set aside for a three sisters planting. my husband is a bit obsessed with this idea. the three sisters garden is an old native american concept where corn, squash, and beans are grown together. the beans twine themselves up and around the corn and the squash provides a lovely but prickly ground covering underneath to help the soil retain moisture and also to deter raccoons from going after your ears of corn. beans add nitrogen to the soil and help nourish the other plantings. the three sisters are planted in mounds with corn in the center and beans planted in a circle around the corn. squash, zukes, or pumpkins are planted on the sides of the corn mounds.

this is our second year planting a three sisters garden. last year we had poor soil and because of this we had trouble growing anything other than a few zucchini. it's working beautifully this year due to our soil amendments. this photo is about two weeks old, and the corn is really towering over the beans now and the squash/zukes/pumpkins are filling in nicely. i can't wait to see what this area of our garden looks like in just a few weeks.

i wanted to briefly talk about weeding. as you may notice in some of my photographs, our weed problem is a bit out of control. this field garden is constantly trying to return itself to its former state, and we don't have the time to keep the weeds under control. recently, i had a bit of an epiphany. i'm trying a little experiment by weeding only the tops of the raised beds and letting the pathways and sides of the beds go wild. i decided to do this because i noticed that the plants in the field garden look really strong and don't have much insect damage. i have a suspicion that the weeds are creating a little ecosystem with beneficial insects that are taking care of the garden pests. plus, i love that we have daisies, st. john's wort (!) and other wild meadow plants growing in and around our garden beds. i'll be sure to let you know what i think of this approach to weeding at the end of the season.

are you familiar with the three sisters?