Home grown

There's nothing like a freshly-mown lawn, ...except, perhaps, a freshly-plowed garden, for spiffing up the place! First, it seemed there wasn't much point in showing the barely-there plantings. But, as soon as the veggies begin to grow, so will the weeds, at an impossibly fast pace. The garden won't look this brown and orderly again until next spring, when, once again, we have the upper hand, and beat them into submission with "the beast"-- 10 horses, tines and Tony hanging on for dear life!
This year's crops: tomatoes (early girl and better boy), peppers, snap peas, green beans, wax beans, zucchini, cucumbers, beets, and butternut squash. (We haven't been this ambitious for a few years!)


Of course, even the old manure spreader can't escape it--garlic mustard. Hiding in plain sight, in every border, under every bush, around every tree..... I'm not sure if it's worth the effort, but there might be some satisfaction in eating it?!

Garlic Mustard Pesto
4 cloves garlic, peeled
3 tablespoons garlic mustard taproots
3/4 cups parsley
1 cup garlic mustard leaves
1 cup basil
1 1/2 cups low-sodium olives, pitted
2 cups walnuts
1 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup mellow miso
1 1/4 cups olive oil or as needed
Chop the garlic and garlic mustard roots in a food processor. Add the parsley, garlic mustard leaves, and basil and chop. Add the nuts and chop coarsely. Add the olive oil and miso and process until you've created a coarse paste. Makes 4 cups.

Working

It seems there are 2 types of days. Days that are full of work (and very little time for pictures) and days that are full of wandering (and everything is a photo op).
Today I have no pictures to share.
I know well that this comfortable, weed-pulling weather will quickly be replaced by the sweltering, clay-baking temperatures. The kind that make you seek refuge inside an air-conditioned room and hope that you made enough progress against the weeds to give the gardens a fighting chance. Heaven knows, there's no point in trying to weed then--they'll just snap off in your fist, roots firmly baked into the earth.
Fighting off the garlic mustard has been a chore since we moved here and discovered it for the first time. I've made good progress--the piles scattered around the yard are proof. But I'm going to have to take it even more seriously. Just when I think I've eradicated it from a section of the ravine, I look out to see a positively huge plant thumbing its nose at me. The stuff just won't die! I read today (in planning my next campaign of attack) that even after pulling it from the ground, the seeds continue to mature. Persistent bugger! I guess that's why garlic mustard is one of Ohio's top 10 targeted invasive species--it grows even in those piles. So, I'll have to do one better--this weekend we'll BURN it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And you'll get a picture!