November 14, 2009

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?

5 comments:

Sowing Clover (Emily) said...

I feel you on this one. I've been outside preparing our plot as much as I can before the snow falls. Before my landlord bought the house many years ago, it was a crack house (really!) and wasn't cared for. Many old broken windows surrounded the house and big chunks of glass are EVERYWHERE! I would love to run through the garden barefooted but can't. :( As for the bricks, many streets in my neighborhood are brick and finding old ones isn't difficult!

The Oak Leaves said...

Oh man, your so lucky. In richmond where i went to school (an hour from here) all of the streets were made of brick built now have asphalt load over them... its so sad!

Sowing Clover (Emily) said...

Gooseflesh has been updated! Very pretty things has she been making. Also, I found the coolest oak leaf last week that I've been meaning to take a picture of for you. :)

The Oak Leaves said...

Awesome! ill check it out and be looking forward to a lovely photo!

Sowing Clover (Emily) said...

Here you go!

http://earthgirlknits.blogspot.com/2009/11/oak-leaves.html