Starting to Bloom

The Parking Lot Garden is just starting to bloom. Stay tuned.

Weeding the Parking Lot Garden

Just starting to remove the Curly Dock . . .

Now that we recognize the weeds growing between the native plants in the Parking Lot Garden, it's time to start weeding. I took on the task of removing the Curly Dock. 

Curly Dock

notice the roots

If you just pulled at Curly Dock in a newly planted bed such as the Parking Lot Garden, you could get an almost soccer-ball-sized clump of soil coming up with the plant. That could destroy whatever soil structure is beginning to form. Instead, while pulling on the plant with one hand, I used a garden fork in the other hand to loosen the grip of the roots. Once the roots were loose, then I used my Hori Hori knife to remove soil from between the roots as I gently pulled out the plant. Then I filled the hole back in and covered it with mulch. The wound to the soil is minimal. 

Tools of the trade

. . . half way done . . .

All done

All done with Curly Dock, that is. See Rogues Gallery for the other weeds we found.

Eggplants, we have a problem.

and there it was . . . gone

As I mentioned in my post of June 4 titled Planting Bee #1 Successful, 

Eggplant is somewhat of an anomaly in this group as it is not quite "historically accurate" regarding Riel House. Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, grew and consumed this vegetable from his Monticello garden in the late 1700's. However, it was not popularized in North America as a vegetable to be consumed until the turn of the twentieth century. Also, in temperate climates such as Riel House, eggplant is typically started indoors eight to ten weeks prior to last frost and requires at least 80 days to mature before first frost. We have set ourselves a challenge.

On June 4, we had planted 16 eggplants that we had purchased once we realized how long seeds took to sprout and mature. On Monday, June 6, we planted Beds 3 and 4 with eggplant seeds that we had previously purchased.On Wednesday, we noted that several of the poorer quality eggplants had been eaten by rabbits. Friday, all the plants have been eaten.

the challenge is over. For this location, eggplants are not historical, require too much care to get started, take too long to mature  and are a delicacy to the local pest. We give up! 

Friday afternoon, we purchased more Red Pontiac potatoes.

Weeding

Curled Dock

The Parking Lot Garden is just getting established after being planted last year with native plants. It has taken us a while to distinguish between a native plant and what we classify as a weed. 
When weeds are removed from the garden, we want to ensure that the soil in which the weed was growing remains as undisturbed as possible when the intruder is removed. Some weeds such as Prickly Lettuce, which has a taproot, take little effort to pull; Curled dock, on the other hand, has rigorous spreading taproots and requires some amount of strength and finesse to get it out of the ground without having a softball-sized clump of soil come with it. Plantain has fibrous roots and is also takes strength and finesse to remove.

It would be good if each of our volunteers became an expert in a single weed and how to remove it effectively. 

See our Rogues Gallery of Weeds.

Rogues Gallery of Weeds

Before - lots of Curled Dock

Today we walked KL from Prairie Originals through the Parking Lot Garden and Road Garden and had her identify weeds that interfere with the native plants that we had planted last year. The Rogues Gallery of Weeds contains photographs of all the weeds that we have found at Riel House.

• Curled Dock
• Pineapple Weed
• Prickly Lettuce
• Quack Grass
• Plantain
• ? Grass
• ? Weed
• Liatris Impostor
• Canada Thistle
• Sweet Clover
• Black Medic

Two samples of what we found today:

Curled Dock

Prickly Lettuce