So here is the problem. Last year I started out with trying to create a butterfly attracting flower bed out front. So we purchased all the necessities, pennsylvania blue stone to make a retaining wall, topsoil, mulch, and the appropriate attracting annuals, perrenials, & herbs. There is one word in the above sentance that is key and is missing. The word should have been "SCREENED" topsoil, and here in lies the problem. Once I got everything planted and mulched (which was fairly later in the spring), it looked pretty, but certainly not for long. By the end of July I couldn't even walk in the bed as it was completly overun by sandburrs. I would take any weed in the world over sandburrs. They are PAINFUL and extremely hard to get rid of in areas that are sandy and full sun, which is pretty much most of my front yard. They get on your clothes, shoes, dog's feet, etc and it sucks. So as fall rolled around I did my best to take out as many of the weeds as possible but once they get the burrs (which are the seeds) its impossible to get them all, they stick to everything. I scraped up all the mulch and got rid of it (there's a big waste of money) and now have to figure out how to get rid of these horrible horrible weeds. So here's my plan...
I read on the intertubes about Soil Solarization. The concept is to lay down sheets of plastic over an area, let the sun heat up the plastic to a tempature that's hot enough to kill off the weed seeds. Most sites recommend doing this at the hottest months of the year. Yeah that's great, but that will tie up my garden bed mid season. I saw on one site that it can be done in the winter, you just need to leave the plastic on longer and it may not kill weeds as deeply as in the heat of the summer. I figure it's worth a shot,. the plastic was cheap. So... that was my project last weekend, lay down all the plastic in the open areas of the bed. I still have perrenials and bushes out there, I just cut slits in the plastic to go around. I hope my crazy idea doesn't end up damaging their roots.
If I kill ONE weed seed, it will be worth the effort, that's how much I hate these *#%$%(&^ sandburrs. Once I take up the plastic, I plan on replacing it with weed cloth. It's not fool proof, but that should help a little. I'll have to buy all new mulch and stay ontop of weeding but hopefully I can do it. I would really like to see more butterflies this year. I did see a few, and saw some caterpillers munching on the rue I planted for them, but I hope the word gets out and I get more visitors.
Seedling update - They are doing amazingly well. So far this has been the most sucessful year of starting seeds. My tomato seedlings already look better now, then they did after 8 weeks last sping (when I had no heating mat and didn't give them any food).
Here's more photos from this weekend.
I transplanted the first sets of tomatos into bigger containers (the ones I thought for sure I killed). I also have some lettuce starts, chives popping up in the big round container, parsley in the paper pots, and new tomatos starting in the egg carton.
Here is a closeup of one of the first tomato seedlings during it's move to the bigger container.
Phase 2 of the tomato experiement will be upon us in just a few weeks, where they will go outside EARLY!!
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