The Most Horrible Weeds: Before and After Weeding Photos

Gargantuan Weeds Choke the Dead Peach Tree

“Why, oh why, are the weeds so incredibly much more horrible this year?” I wondered to myself. “Am I just getting older? Do they just SEEM worse?”

OH YEAH. THE DRIP SYSTEM.

These weeds have been thriving on drip system water, and have put down Hellish roots and have TAKEN OVER.

The WORST area is by my dead Peach Tree and “Rosebush”. Well, underneath all of the EVIL Morning Glory, there still IS a rosebush, but I haven’t seen it since March. I really should do a post on EVIL Morning glory, because it really is an incredible plant, flower and FOE.

P*L*U*S, there is this very Unfortunate House in my neighborhood that CLEARLY was landscaped by a Yankee Transplant (Not that I have anything against them), and they just didn’t know what they were getting into, with the year-round growing season here and the EVIL Morning GLory. Oh my Lord. Their backyard (which is visible from the street), well, it looks like they just had a nervous breakdown and gave up, the EVIL Moring GLory has completely taken over and is growing like Kudzu all up into the trees, having already overgrown all the shrubs and flowers and lawn furniture and the water feature and the gardening shed. I really should get you a picture!

There is ANOTHER house in my neighborhood too, that had this problem in years past, and although they have cleared most of it out, it is still a pitched battle.

Every winter I pull up every vestige of EVIL Morning Glory on my property, and every spring it comes back and grows its Transatlantic cables throughout the entire yard and up under the eaves and INTO the HOUSE and UNDER the HOUSE and UP the Night Blooming Jasmine (which is probably my favorite plant in my whole yard), trying to kill it.

Behold The EVILLL!!!!

Why do I let it grow at all? Well, it is PART hubris; I think I can mange it (and I always fail). Also, the flowers are really, really, REALLY pretty. Not as pretty as GOOD Morning Glory, but close. Good Morning Glory is the annual kind, you have to plant it from seed every spring, and it canNOT take the heat. I think it is called “Heavenly Blue” (the variety) and it IS Heavenly.

EVIL Morning GLory is Perreniel: Plant it once and suffer forever. It L*O*V*ES the heat. The flowers tend closer to purple than the annual Morning Glory. Like a Stephen King novel plant, it will envelope you and grow all over you and strangle you as you sit in your lawn furniture. It will tear your house down if you let it.

So, In these weeding photos, you will see the “rosebush” in the background, with it’s mantle of EVIL Morning Glory. Let the WEDDING BEGIN!

You can SEE the “Rosebush” in the far Left. See the leaves? Evil Morning Glory Leaves.

Long View of Weedy Area with the Beginnings of Weeding in the upper right

Half Weeded!

A Closer Look at the Fine Weeding Job that included digging up Sweet Potato sized Four O' Clock Tubers

All Planted Up with Cabbages, Kale, and Lettuce

Time to Build Up my Readership….with More “Before and After” Weeding photos!

Pansies

Even though I am “over” the “flu, I am still dragging my ass around and sleeping inordinately and feeling queasy and energy-less. But everytime I get sick, I learn and relearn and RELEARN AND RELEARN this lesson: The World Did Not Come to An End When I Fell Behind In My Work/Chores.

And once you get to feeling better, the temptation is ENORMOUS to start stressing about Time Pressure even MORE than you did BEFORE you got sick, because NOW you are THREE WEEKS BEHIND !!!!!  ELEVENTY-ONE !!! But I swear to almighty GOD, THIS TIME I am going to LEARN the LESSON, that freaking out about time pressure and chores is Not Indictated. The thing to learn is to Relax and Do your Work and Enjoy It and Chill Out about time pressure and Try to Enjoy your life while you are Living It,  instead of feeling stressed all the time. Even when it comes to the Garden, what is the WORST thing that could happen if I didn’t get things planted in time? I would have to buy vegetables at the Farmer’s Market. Big Deal!

First thing after rising from my sofa, I weeded the beds I had already planted. And now…..(drum roll)……the before and after Weeding Photos!!

Broccoli Bed : BEFORE

Broccoli AFTER also MULCHED

Cabbage Bed : BEFORE

Cabbage Bed: AFTER also MULCHED!

The Cilantro Bed (or, as I really Should call it, the Nutgrass Bed) BEFORE!

The Cilantro Bed: AFTER

OMG Kathy! Did You Get Your Tiny Cabbages Planted before The Almost Certain Rain Tomorrow?!?!?!?

Enormous Grub Poops in my Hand.

Of course I did. But first, a gratuitous photo of a gigantic Grub crapping in my hand!

Then, let us join hands in prayerful expectation of RAIN, which there is an 80% chance of tomorrow, and even as I TYPE THIS, my radar shows a line of violent thunderstorms drifting in an Austinly direction! I may be wakening to the sound of thunder at 4 AM.

After a day like today, where I did a million things IN ADDITION to a Herculean Gardening Chore, I feel too tired to do much ‘splaining. Let us proceed DIRECTLY to the DOCUMENTATION:

Where is the Bed? I can't see it for all the weeds....oh, THERE it is, inside the barely visible brick outline

For Contrast, here you see on the left, a FINISHED BED, next to THE WEEDY BED that we will be working on today

Now, a photo of the bed, weeded:

I Have Weeded It

I found a few surviving beets and onions, that lived through the merciless heat and drought in the shade of the native weed-cover.

What a Fine White Onion, a SURVIVOR!

What a fine onion! I left him there to delight in the cooler temperatures and rain of Autumn

Now, a photo of the bed with three piles of screened compost:

This is just about the L*A*S*T of my homemade compost! Things are not breaking down very quickly in the DROUGHT

PLANTED!

All Planted! THis bed's new name shall be THE CABBAGE BED

Cauliflower in the back, then cabbages, then a row of “recovered” onions that I found, still alive, under the shade of the weeds, then Beets. Tomorrow, I will do a little post on BEETS, like my CARROTS: THE PLANTING post.

We Demand MORE Weeding Photos! Sez Rabble of Excited Fans

Primary Colors in the Garden

First, enjoy this lovely photo of the primary colors of the Oxblood Rain Lilies, Bronze Chrysanthemums, and Plumbago.

Now, these next beds promised to be a breeze, because the weeds weren’t too thick….until I remembered that in order to dig out the Bermuda Grass Roots, I would have to scrape off and RESERVE all the MULCH. Oy. So it became a multi-step process: 1) pull up dead plants 2) scrape off mulch 3) dig up weeds 4) turn over soil 5) fertilize 6) screen compost 7) spread compost. Are you sweating yet?

The "Carrot" Bed (I am naming these beds after what I planted in them last year)

The Carrot Bed" AFTER!!!!

In this bed, the Artichoke Bed, as I proceeded to pull up the very dead artichokes, guess what? THEY WEREN’T ALL DEAD! So I relocated them to a more congenial spot (this is a VERY hot bed in the summer, with the sun reflecting off the asbestos tile)

The Artichoke Bed: BEFORE!

The Artichoke Bed: AFTER!!!

I ran out of fertilizer, so I had to stop and go to the Garden Store. I go to The Natural Gardener, which is about 20 fucking miles away, damn them, but they are the BEST! It is a HUGE TRIP though, and in order to Personally Save the Earth I go as seldom as I can.

tiny artichoke leaves protrude from UNDEAD ROOT BALL!!

More Evidence of Life!

Don’t You Have Anymore Weeding Photos, You Elitist Chowhound?

The Trans-Atlantic Cables

Why Yes, YES I DO! First, I will treat you to a photograph of what I will call “The Chard Bed”, a small bed that lies near the driveway. I actually weeded these beds BEFORE (as in TEN MINUTES BEFORE) the rain, but I didn’t want to post them until I had the “AFTER” photos, which required Red Chrysanthemums. The Nurseries did not have Red Chrysanthemums IN STOCK before the Rain, an oversight that they have since rectified.

The Chard Bed: "BEFORE"

The Chard Bed: "AFTER"

Next, The Pomegranate Tree:

The Pomegranate Tree: BEFORE! (Note the many suckers)

The Pomegranate Tree: AFTER! (Note Red Chrysanthemums)

Let's See Those Red Chrysanthemums Some More!! (From the base of the Pomegranate Tree)

In which I Accomplish A Herculean Feat of Herculean Proportions that could only be Accomplished by Hercules

More "After" (with Rainlilys)

SO. Popping out of my house yesterday morning, I decided that since it had stopped raining and didn’t seem to even be THREATENING rain, I had better get back on the WEEDING HORSE because It had been like ten days so I was really getting behind “schedule” (you know, a bed a day and being done by the end of September.)

So because I CAN BE this way, I decided to tackle the HAIRIEST bed of all, the junglular (as in the word jungle), vine-strewn creepy awful FRONT BED, where I have a mountain of seedy oregano in addition to the Stephen King Morning Glories choking the very life out off everything and even climbing up into the rain gutters. Dave thought of the perfect name for them, he calls them “The Trans-Atlantic Cables” because of their tendency to wrap around themselves and grow in the straight line down the side of the house, like 20 vines all wrapped together and impossible to break (I told you it was Junglular!)

So, I weeded that bed. It took just about ALL DAY, and without further ado, here are the BEFORE and AFTER pictures:

BEFORE!

AFTER!

Let the Weeding Begin!! September Gardening Series #2

Sad-Ass Sorrel plants, shrunken like Shrunken Heads to 1/40th their normal size by Heat and Drought

Because NO ONE CARES about my weeding progress or even my gardening except YOU, my DARLING READERS, I shall be documenting my painstakingly slow, arduous, sweaty progress from “Weed Kingdom” to “Ready for Planting”. I have, roughly, what might be described as 22 beds: some are HUGE (Hi Stella!) and some are tiny (the mailbox bed), but my general plan for September is to weed, fiddle with the drip system, turn the soil over with the shovel, and maybe even possibly add compost to ONE BED A DAY, and then, by the end of Septemeber, I ought to be READY FOR PLANTING!

Of course, nothing ever goes as planned, and life is uncertain, but that is the GENERAL PLAN. In order to get Ahead of Life’s curveballs, I plan, when possible, to do MORE than one bed a day. That way, when I absolutely can NOT do it for whatever reason (like if it is raining (HA HA HA HA HAH !!!) Oh, I slay myself) or Cramps, or getting thrown in jail) I won’t have Blown the Whole System.

Bed #1: BEFORE, pictured with weeding trowels in the foreground

Bed #1 AFTER!!!!

But in spite of my Bitter, bitter rain joke in the last paragraph, I am planning on a rainy rainy fall, because I believe it will be a rainy fall. I believe it so much that I am going to try to plant EARLY, rather than late, so that the tiny Plantios are somewhat established before the bottom drops out and the flooding begins. I feel it in my bones that planting early is going to be the only hope for a productive garden this fall/winter.

A Selection of Allums discovered to be lingering among the weeds of Bed #1

My Cats L*O*V*E the smell of onions, and want to transform them into playthings IMMEDIATELY

Bed #2: Weeds and 4 Thai Pepper Plants

AFTER! Bed #2, with only the Peppers Remaining

Bed #3, which I did all Extra! YAY

September Gardening Series

I got a lovely comment from a new reader today, saying that she will be watching the blog for Austin Texas Gardening Know-How. Which reminded me: Hey! Gardening season is about to start!!

It is hard for those who garden in “Regular America” (you know, the people whose gardening season is coming to an end; those fortunate individuals who experience 4 seasons a year and have crisp, chill night air for trick-or-treating) to realize that OUR “fallow” season is July/August/September, when it is TOO DAMN HOT to do much without either 1) getting heat stroke or 2) everything instantly dying.

As I understand it, out in the country near here, things DO still grow in the summer because it cools off at night, but here in Austin PROPER it doesn’t cool off enough for anything to set fruit (not even nightshades like tomatoes and eggplant).

So I will be doing a series on getting your garden going. This September, I plan to:

1) get the weeds out of the beds (mostly Bermuda Grass, of course) (THIS WILL TAKE ALL MONTH)

and

2) Plant carrots (this is the only thing to plant in September)

I MIGHT, I just MIGHT, try to plant another round of cucumbers, because we got NONE due to the 106˚ temperatures. It was TOO HOT to grow cucumbers this year!!!!! CUCUMBERS!!! It was too hot to grow OKRA!!! IT WAS INSANE!!! When I try to figure it out…September, October, November….there just MIGHT be enough time to get a crop of cucumbers before the first frost.

So you can look forward to some more of those inspiring “Before” and “After” WEEDING PHOTOS!!

Winter Leeks

Weeding

Broccoli Bed: BEFORE

Weeding is a topic not generally discussed at GREAT LENGTH because (I imagine) to dwell on it overmuch might discourage would-be gardeners. The word “weeding” brings to mind words like “Chore” and “Bored” and “Sweat”. But My Mom once confessed to me that the hour a day she spent weeding in the early morning (she had a Very Large Garden and Gorgeous Acre of Landscaping) was one of the most restful and pleasant of her day.  

Broccoli Bed: AFTER

“How much do you weed everyday?” I asked her once when she was describing her morning. “Oh, about three buckets full, everyday.” she replied. By buckets she meant those big white plastic buckets with a metal wire handle, that are free. (Fast food places use them. They are sometimes termed “pickle buckets” because they are what McDonald’s pickles come in.)

My third of an acre is NEVER weed-free like my Mom’s place; usually it is overgrown with horrible weeds that I attend to when I have time, and when there isn’t anything MORE IMPORTANT to do in the garden itself. (Like planting, or watering, or harvesting.) But one Weeding Joy is the pleasure of pulling out plants that are “done” (have I used enough quotation marks yet?)

Gone-to-Seed Arulula Bed: BEFORE

ANYWAY, it is ever so much more fun that picking weeds out from AMONG desired Plantios.  (In my head I always call plants “plantios”. In fact I have a secret set of terms and words that I use primarily with myself, but occasionally with others. Plants=plantios. Okra=oka. Similar=smilar, pronounced SMI-lar. Kitten= KIN-ton, and chicken= CHIN-kon. More on this fascinating topic in posts to come!)

Arugula Bed: AFTER

It is a complete razing, everything must GO.