Monday, July 26, 2010

Howdy, Sweetpeas!


I spent almost all weekend in the dirt, which is certainly one of my most favourite places to be! I worked at my friend's farm on Saturday {I keep on forgetting to bring my camera!} and most of Sunday in my garden.

I expanded a fence-line bed which will be for some witchy perennials, but for now I will plant some leftover veggie seeds. The bed was full of lamb's quarters, mallow, chickweed, and Cupani sweetpeas {which were almost done} that I had planted earlier this year, so I had to yank those guys out so I could improve the soil.
{left over sweetpeas and a cornflower}

We've been covering any unused space in our newer veggie patch with newspaper and cardboard as it becomes available to us to keep the weeds down. The soil was pretty much like beach sand, so when preparing it earlier we used up all of the compost that we had left, but didn't get the whole patch covered. I suppose that was just as well, because our dozen or so pumpkin plants are taking over and now we are finally getting some blossoms {yay!}.




I am probably one of the laziest gardeners on the planet when it comes to weeding, especially pathways. My friend suggested using white clover in our pathways, and after reading this article I think that is what we are going to do for next year. It apparently chokes out any weeds, it adds nitrogen to plants growing around it, attracts pollinators, and makes an excellent mulch.

I did get some time to relax and enjoy some feathered visitors...




...but this morning I feel like just doing this:



I am off to get more coffee.

Sláinte!

Laurel

7 comments:

Bek said...

Is that your cat (we've seen before, peeping out from underneath a duvet!)? What a beautiful maneki neko type smile she/he has!

Glad to hear you've been getting to spend lots of time getting dirty ;)

Amazing bird piccies - and I like your choice of vase in the other photos too!

We thought about doing the same thing with clover up at the allotment :)

nefaeria said...

Yes, this is our little butterball, Ellios. I am glad you like his smile. ;) And thanks for the kind word! :)

That's cool that you are thinking of the clover...are other folks doing that already at your community garden?

Bek said...

Ellios...aw!

No-one's doing the clover pathways yet: looks like we might be the first to experiment, but we want to wait till September, when we hope any seeds we sow will have more of a chance - it's so dry and dusty at the moment.

Look forward to seeing yours before then hopefully!

Medusae said...

What beautiful photos! Love your Ellios ^.^

nefaeria said...

Bek: So you might just start a trend over there. ;) How many folks use the community garden?

Medusae: Thanks, lady! :) How's your Summer been so far? I bet the weather is better than last year, eh?

Cammie said...

your cat is so cute!

perma_culture said...

Pretty photos and I love your kitty! =^)