The picture above shows part of my fruit bed. It will be full of apples, pears, blueberries and strawberries this spring -- but right now it is full of "green manure." I wasn't sure of what most of this was so I took a bunch of pictures, plant by plant, and e-mailed them to Seattle Tilth's amazing helpline. A few days letter, I learned what I had -- good, bad, and ugly.
THE GOOD: Some of my plants turned out to be desired -- at least by someone. And one was edible!
Oregano 
PansyFoxglove
THE BAD: These plants are definitely weeds -- but are pretty lightweight fighters for their space in the garden.
Chickweed surrounded by shotweed. Both are easy to pull and new plants can be smothered with an application of about two inches of compost. They say shotweed seeds will fly from the plant when it is touched -- which is why it shouldn't be allowed to go to seed.
Cut leaf geranium. Easy to pull and smother with compost.
Annual fireweed. Another one you don't want to let go to seed. Easy to pull.
Canada Thistle (distinguished from Bull by its lack of spines on its stems). Has a long tap root -- that can live up to two years without a plant attached?! Using a weed hound is recommended.
Dandelion. And nope, I didn't recognize it without its flower. It also has a long tap root and a weed hound is recommended.
THE UGLY: These are the worst of the worst in my garden.
Weedy vetch. It resprouts easily and can grow to smother other plants. Must be diligent about removing all of it.
Oxalis. This one is an aggressive spreader too. Looks like clover. Must dig deeply to remove all of it. Do not put into home compost.
MY PLAN: Probably to let it all sit for a while. Pull the weeds with flowers so nothing goes to seed. Then when my new fruit starts arrive, set to work. Order compost, do a thorough weeding job, plant the new fruit, lay down a soaker hose, and cover the whole thing with 2" of compost.
In the meantime, I rebooted my photo printer and printed out all the pictures. On the back I wrote out Seattle Tilth's tips (abridged) and drew symbols for the illiterate (2 out of three of my kids can't read yet.) I made sad and happy faces for weeds and desired plants -- and pictures of plants above ground (for pull it) and a person with a shovel (for go get an adult.) I am going to stuff them into sandwich baggies so we can carry them into the yard with us -- and hopefully the whole clan will soon be experts at weed identification and eradication!
Weeds do grow really well here, don't they? ;-)
ReplyDeleteThey do! I am kind of amazed by how well the weeds are doing this winter. I guess I never really paid attention before but I am sure I have more green coverage in that fruit bed now than I did last fall.
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