a welter of wilted weeds

This blog post could also be titled "A Lazy Person's Guide to Weeding, or a cautionary tale on what happens when you wait too long to deal with the weeds in your raised garden beds." But that was a bit too long for the title, plus it wouldn't fit in the side bar. However, let it serve as a warning to you about letting things get just a wee bit out of control.

This was the situation we faced a week ago when I went out to assess the garden beds for their readiness to be planted. Never mind that I could see them out the kitchen window; I had vainly hoped that it wasn't quite as bad as all that.



As you can see, it was quite as bad as all that. I hauled out our supply of contractor's black plastic, and covered them all up in anticipation that the coming heat wave would cook those suckers into submission.



Two days later and the majority are still distressingly perky...



When we finally took off the black plastic covers on Sunday, a foul stench of steamed weed rose up, but the vast majority were still thumbing their noses at us and our wimpy black plastic. The look on Secondo's face says it all; he knows he will be elbow deep in weeding before too long.



So we brought out the big guns. Five thousand BTUs later and those suckers are STILL standing.



Anyone want to guess what these were, before they were grilled in place by my LSH? (Sorry about that shot of my lovely thumbnail, that looks as if it belongs to a 90 year old, or my 6th grade science teacher, who had the grossest. nails. ever.)



We gave up and weeded by hand, while I swore the entire time that I would never, ever let it get that bad again. Check back this time next year. My powers of prognostication suggest that the blog post will be amazingly similar to this year's.



Only their slightly charred wooden edges hint at the struggle that took place...

Don't worry, I didn't forget Tuesday's kid quote. This year's vegetable garden and its contents were to a large degree planned by my oldest two sons. Their insatiable appetite for spare cash was whetted by last year's effort, and so they carefully planned based upon what had been, in their words, their "big sellers." Out with the jalapeno peppers, in with the zucchini, because as Secondo put it, "that was our hottest item." It's like living with mini-MBAs.