15 July 2012

A spot of weeding

With five acres to try and manage, there are always a thousand jobs waiting for you.  Having said that, its one of the things I like about living on acreage. But one of those jobs is weeding beds you're trying to do something with.  I often take a philosophical approach to weeding and simple think of it as mulch, and just do a "chop and drop".  At least some additional organic matter is going into the soil.  But every now and again, you really want to get an area up to the next level.  And it was the Fig Tree area's time.

This area is right next to the driveway as you come up to the house and right next to the pool, so its been a bit of an eye sore, even though I told myself the line about organic matter.  The previous owners, or the one's before them I suspect, had put some rocks along the front to edge it, but these had long become overgrown.  Now a few things conspired yesterday - wanting to put some more weeds in for the chicks to dig around in, some left over lucerne bales from a bulk buy we did and a spurt of energy.  So out came the substantial weeds (taking about a dozen bucket loads down to the little girls), down went some cardboard and then the lucerne.  What I also discovered on the low side of the garden bed was that the old owners had also edge it with wooden retaining planks, so I reinstated these as well, so the whole are is now nicely bordered and heavily mulched.  I had planted two cherry bushes and a fig tree last year and they have been slowly doing their thing, but with all that new weed-free space, I couldn't leave it at that.  So I also went and bought a few more edibles to fill the gaps - artichokes, capsicum, fruit salad sage, pineapple sage and purple basil.  And they are all looking extremely happy in their new home.  So now at least when I drive up the driveway, I look over happily at my handiwork, rather than adding another chore to my growing list (for now).

4 comments:

  1. Hi Energiser bunny....I have been trying to work out how to follow your blog . Is there a box or do I just subscribe via email.
    Kim -the little black cow blog.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Kim,

    Thanks for your comment, I have added a gadget to the right hand side bar.

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. So great to see your blog updated; I've read about your journey with much envy. We have just purchased a large acreage block, but it is four hours drive from where we currently live & work. I am getting lots of ideas and inspiration from your posts, and can't wait to be closer to our own patch to have a go and get stuck in ourselves!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Melissa - thanks so much for letting me know. It will help to keep me motivated to take pics and blog more. That's exciting that you've bought some land and I'm sure you'll love building it up. Let me know how you go.

    Sandy

    ReplyDelete