We might be heading into the winter, but our gardens are still nice and green!
Here is a quick story on one of our gardens at the farm. This one is 75 feet by 75 feet. It was our celery patch earlier this season, and has nicely transitioned into a cover crop of oats.
Less that 12 months ago, this garden was part of our pasture, with a mix of grass, alfalfa, and weeds. We started making the garden by plowing (November 2023). In the spring (April/May 2024) we made several passes with a rototiller to break up the grass sods. Then came the addition of compost on the garden beds and wood chips in the pathways – all this was the easy work!
Most will know that most grass rhizomes are very resilient. After only a few weeks of planting celery, the field turned green with grass as all the rhizomes began to sprout. Thankfully, the farm crew put in the huge effort to pick the grass every week for a few months: this exhausts the energy reserves in the rhizomes and eventually the grass disappears. Now it’s safe to say that the grass has mostly been eradicated from this small garden.
Keeping a garden weed free is important and so rewarding!