Gardening Baby, One More Time
Time seemed to slide by this morning as I slipped into my gardening clogs to spend a few hours weeding. I have resumed my practice of singing to the garden and declaring, “Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day!”
The seeds were planted in late March, and I cannot actually recall what was planted this time around. What has sprouted so far includes spinach, 7 tomato plants from last years‘s snack cherry tomatoes that fell on the ground, a small sprig of basil, a few small cucumber plants, and lots and lots of lettuce that we planted last year, my in-laws heritage seeds!
I was pleasantly surprised when I located a playlist called “Gardening”. I found myself actually laughing aloud as it played classics like Straight Up by Paula Abdul, Wannabe by Spice Girls, Material Worldby Madonna, The Best by Tina Turner, My Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus, and …Baby One More Time by Britney Spears.
Because I don't consider my thumb to be quite green enough yet, I still use a nifty iPhone app called PictureThis that lets me photograph whatever is growing, then it magically identifies the plant. This process is quite fascinating. The types of weeds I pulled this time included: Smooth Cat’s Ear, Tree of heaven, Hairy Crabgrass, American Burnweed, Jewelweed, Green foxtail, Common buckthorn, and a ton of Japanese stiltgrass. Although it is a non-toxic grass, Japanese stiltgrass is a weed with an annual lifespan, so I worked hard to get that sucker out of the garden!
I was told while editing this piece that the rest is sort of getting lost in the weeds. Literally. So let's see if I can untangle them for you.
Another nuisance I found was Swamp MilkWeed that grew as small as sprouts on a salad. They shot up abundantly in the mulched section of the garden, although my husband did this intentionally to avoid unwanted growth, it didn't seem to be phased by it at all. I plucked each one individually and tossed them carefully over the garden fence. Thank goodness the double vision is improving because this would have otherwise been an overwhelming and nearly impossible task of focus on. Some of the weeds have names that make me blush, like “common nipplewort.”
Somehow PoorJoe made its way into the garden. Also known as Rough ButtonWeed, the app informed me it actually was not a weed but rather an herb that is expected to flower in the spring, summer and fall. So I did not remove this from the garden. It was a good thing that I snapped a photo of certain weeds twice, because it saved me from picking the first budding cucumber in our garden!
Although they sound endearing, the app reminded me that dandelions are a weed and quite invasive! I kept not recognizing its leaves and was surprised more than 13 times when the app reminded me yet again it was a dandelion growth.
Something crossed my mind when I knelt down in the mud, would the little seeds that hadn’t yet sprung up yet somehow be damaged or impacted by the momentary weight of me. I’m usually skirmish around bugs, but it didn’t bother me as the earth around me seemed to be breathing with life, this was their home that I was disturbing. I wish the iPhone had an app to identify insects but we will cross that bridge later…
I quietly apologized to the Garden Gods as I pulled a red maple and a small Oak seedlings that were growing just inside of the wooden board and tossed them just over the garden fence to see if they might survive in that new territory. This essay began as a writing prompt from last summer, and we will be receiving a new prompt soon. But I felt called to continue writing about this growth, we'll see where this adventure takes us!