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To live a self-sufficient and organic lifestyle for the next half century. With the Grace of God and the power of prayer, we will succeed. Nothing is impossible with His help. It wouldn't be us without laughter and joy at the Cockeyed Homestead.

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Sunday, September 15, 2019

The Cockeyed Garden Again

Now that I've regained some of my energy from my July fiasco, I noticed some green poking through the landscape barrier cloth in the garden. Maybe, we should have used black plastic here too.

As Two Women and One Hoe points out, weeds continue to grow underneath and on top of it. But I was thinking buried under a foot of wood chips, and then the landscape fabric would work and save energy.  We wouldn't have to aerate the soil or water it.When organically growing a garden, you use what nature gives you. You use the compost, wood chip, hay, and nonsprayed hay to do the work for you. The blackness of the fabric retains heat of the composting material and the sun.  But it also needs moisture to work properly. I should have known better.

The weeds grew through two feet of wood chips and another foot of organic material (composting chicken and rabbit manure) and dying weeds would work. No, but Mel's weeds are super strong. They are even growing THROUGH the gravel in our driveway.  These are almost impossible to pull up without pulling up destroying the driveway. It's 2" of coarse grade rock and 8" of finer compacted gravel. Yes, some are growing on top of all that gravel, but those are shallow rooted and easy to pull.


So this week, I've been pulling and snipping weeds in the garden taking frequent breaks. UGH! Just what I was trying to avoid. But, my incisions have healed nicely and my strength is getting better. The weather is cooler so it's not sweltering outside, but I'm still sweating from the exertion. If I don't get them now, it will undermine all of our garden starting from scratch again efforts.

What's a homesteader to do otherwise? We can't afford a busted garden year next spring. The stores pickings will be almost empty by then. The idea of being like city folks again and buying everything, is an abhorrent thought! Especially when I know, there's at least two feet of rich, organic soil there to plant in. No,no, no, perish the thought! All those chemicals, waxes, and oils, no thank you. I'll go back to planting in pots before I do that.

I'm not opposed to pots, mind you if that's all you can do. But, when you've got almost got a little less than 1/2 an acre of growing space of rich organic soil, why would you? The only thing we plant in pots are the not cold hardy plants like our ginger and turmeric, and citrus trees, or starting seeds. Even then, we are using our own soil and compost to grow them in. Can you imagine how many pots we'd need to grow enough to be self sufficient? Besides the cost of the pots, it's impractical not to mention insane. I'd be watering constantly.

So I'll continue to pull weeds when I see them. They'll eventually go dormant.

Y'all have a blessed day.
Cockeyed Jo

6 comments:

  1. Never give up Jo and Mel. Reading your post is like a true novel. But it is real, so I pray for your trials to get easier for you.
    It's easy to give opinions and ways to do things but I also try to find ways to make mo money. The luck just isn't there. So I'll never give up. Just like Jo and Mel.
    upD

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  2. I hope you get those weeds under control...I'm rooting for you. :) Lol!

    My garden was very disappointing this year with all of the crazy weather we had...but I'm happy to have some fresh veggies even with the weather weirdness. Thanks for stopping by my blog to say his and share your ideas!
    Lisa from The Self Sufficient HomeAcre

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    1. I will God willing. I almost had them beat last year, but have been in the hospital off and on. So the garden went to weed.

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  3. We had the exact same problem with landscape cloth! And mulch. Our most tenacious weed is wiregrass (Bermuda). I hate that stuff, but it always wins. I've been toying with the idea of pots too, but like you can't see keeping enough to grow everything we need! Tanya at Out Back blog plants a lot of stuff in containers and appears to do very well that way. Her Australian summers are pretty tough on gardening too, so she inspires me.

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    1. Leigh,
      I can't see growing 200 lbs. of green beans and tomatoes in pots like I did last year. There's corn, peas, and drying beans to boot. I've had marginal success with potatoes, squashes, cucumbers in pots, but didn't reach my expected goals.

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