Gardening time

I've enjoyed growing vegetables since I was a young lad. There's nothing like eating peas right off the vine or wiping a carrot clean (?) on your pant leg before enjoying it. Today I bring the produce into the kitchen to be prepared properly. Most of the time. While enjoying those tasty BLT's is still a few months off, it's time to get started. I tilled up the gardens last weekend. I say gardens because our wooded surroundings provide only scattered areas of adequate sun exposure.

The garden where I prefer planting cucumbers and squash was only recently reclaimed from the wild. Weeds and even brush are still more than a minor annoyance. Pulling weeds is not my favorite pass-time during those hot summer days. Especially when they are entangled with the vines. Being a bit on the lazy side I figured there should be a way around this thankless task. So instead of sending the newspapers off to recycle during the winter I stack them in the basement. Now the town collects all the fallen and pruned branches from local residents and chips them up for composting. Locals can haul away compost or raw chips free of charge. Getting the picture?

After tilling and raking the soil I drag out the newspapers and cover the ground two to four layers thick. Overlapping the layers for good coverage. Since this garden is on a slope I start at the top so the lapped layers won't form a watershed. Then I weight down the paper with a sprinkling of wood chips. I doesn't take many to hold things in place. Keep in mind that choosing a calm day for this allows me to keep my language at a PG rating. During frequent rests from this back breaker it's fun to read last year's news.


It's amusing to read how those now forgotten controversies stirred up the populace. Well, at least the reporters got excited about it. Today the color of Michelle's inauguration day gloves doesn't seem all that critical. Whatever happened to the bird flu pandemic? Migrating song birds with a skull and cross bones on their backs never showed up. Oh yes, all those banks crapped the bed and it's not over yet, but I'll read all about it next spring.

Fast forward to mid-summer. A chair in my favorite shady spot and a can of my favorite brew... Vwallah, no weeds! By autumn the newspaper will be pretty well deteriorated. Any leaves that won't fit into my three composting bins will get dumped on top of this garden. Next spring the whole works gets tilled into the soil and it starts all over again. This will be the fourth season using the paper mulch method on this garden and the soil has become unbelievably rich and loose. The earthworm population has increased dramatically. They love those leaves with paper.

Other garden areas for tomatoes and peppers get the shredded junk mail and grass clippings treatment. Maybe I'll return to that a different time. Or not.