They Garden Best Who Garden Least

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Weeds have been allowed to grow in the plots that were not mulched. If you think you would like to be a lazy gardener, you should study the previous sentence carefully. Some people may look at the weeds and think that you have been lax in tending your garden. It is then that you need to be able to tell them that you have let the weeds grow on purpose. (If you can't think of a good reason to back up what is happening in your garden without you, tell people it is an experiment.)

There may be other unmulched areas in my garden but you can count on the lettuce and cabbage plots being unmulched. Slugs love the moist interiors of lettuce and cabbage but they hate dry soil. I have found the best way to keep slugs out of these two crops is to cultivate around them. Slugs don't do much damage but they sure are off-putting in the kitchen. Most of my cultivation and weeding is done in the spring. There are better things to do during the dog days of summer than chase weeds. July, August, and September are harvesting and eating months. I may pull a few weeds while harvesting but the garden in late summer usually has a fairly decent crop of mature weeds. I get rid of any that are going to compete with my crops. The rest are filling in spaces that I don't need. Some are low-growing, so they're good ground cover. Others are tall.

These have a special use in the winter garden. There is a field to the west of my garden, which means that a lot of wind blows across it. Anything sticking up in the garden tends to slow the wind. In the fall the wind sometimes carries leaves, which get caught in the weeds. Free mulch delivered and spread. When the winter wind carries snow with it, the slowing of the wind causes the snow to drop out and cover the garden. Several years ago I planted a row of shrubs 20 feet west of the garden to act as a snow fence. Snow has been called the poor man's fertilizer. Since snow has no more nutritive value than rain does, it is difficult to see how it fertilizes. I suspect it got the reputation for being good for farmers because they found that the years after a snow-covered winter were better growing years than when the ground was exposed all winter. My guess is that the snow protected the soil from the elements and from freezing and thawing. The living community in the soil was able to be more active under the snow and this activity produced more soil nutrients.

At any rate, I love to see the garden covered by snow all winter, as was the case last winter. There was snow on the garden from late December until late May. This snow cover kept the ground from freezing more than an inch deep. Considering that frost can go as deep as four feet in this area, that was a remarkable difference. In northern climates there is one winterizing job to be done after the ground freezes if you are growing strawberries. Strawberry plants have fairly brittle roots which can be broken by freezing and thawing of the soil. Wait until the first freeze before you insulate the ground so that it will likely not thaw.

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