In the Winter all i want to do is garden...

Photo via adlandscapesltd.

These bricks are delightfully colored...

I've been trying to use this time (winter) wisely and think more of solutions to the past years problems instead of how i want to arrange the veggies next year. One huge problem actually stems from our commitment to remain organic when it comes to our little piece of dirt. I have recently come to the realization that the reason i have to weed more than anyone else is that i allow "weeds" to run rampant in my lawn. I mean, maybe there's a way to rid myself of them organically, but i've yet to stumble on it.

I have a small L shaped raised bed that covers roughly 100-150 square feet in the corner of my yard with one side against the house and the other against a fence. The 3 exposed sides (though raised 8-10 inches or so behind wood) gather sooooooo many weeds! mainly creeping grasses which are such a pain to pull up. The other perpetrator being some type of huge mint that my mother planted back there when she was little -that has now taken over a good 10th of the entire property (I HATE MINT).

So, my idea, which would usually be an expensive one, is a small surround of bricks. Like i said, i love bricks! And my father and i have a habit of raiding homes on future demo sites in the middle of the night for various things. I know it sounds odd and possibly quite dangerous (and maybe even a little bit illegal) to go at an old fireplace with a sledge hammer in the dark of night... But we cant stand to see useful things go to waist. And who can afford bricks? Especially nice old ones?

SO thats what we do, and I've now got about 3/4 of a pallets worth of bricks stacked up in my back yard waiting to be the floor of my eventual greenhouse. But could they have a more pressing use? Thats what I'm currently trying to decide. Use the bricks now, and whine when we finally get to the greenhouse and don't have enough, or let the weeds move into the vegetables once again? WHat to do, what to do?