I spent Friday night and Saturday morning planting my first batch of field peas. I decided to plant Zipper Creams and I am so glad to be done. I let the weeds in my first batch of corn get out of control. It was a very tough job getting the area prepped so I could replant my peas.
I started by cutting the weeds with my lawnmower on a high setting. I then used my small tiller to make several passes and break out the weeds. It was a tedious process of tilling, raking, and repeating until most of the weeds were gone.
As a side note, the tiller I have is actually a tiller attachment that connects to my weedeater. It worked pretty good, the only complaint I have is that the tines are kind of small and kept getting tangled with weeds. I had to stop several times to clear the tines of debris. I wish I had a big boy tiller, but this attachment was only $89 bucks and I didn't want to shell out a lot of money for a full size tiller. I also like it because I can use it easily to get in between rows to weed.
Once I got everything ready, I planted 150 feet of zipper creams using my Earthway precision garden seeder. I am so glad I have this, while prepping was a nightmare planting the seed was effortless using my seeder. Once the seeds sprout I am going to lay weed fabric between the rows to prevent the weeds from getting out of control.
A big time mess with the remaining corn in the background.
Close up of the weed jungle.
It is no wonder my corn yields suffered.
This is after I ran over it with my mower.
After several passes with the tiller and raking the weeds out.
Finished project with six rows of seed planted.
11 comments:
Looks wonderful. Now for peas. Yum. :)
You did a great job! Not a single weed in sight.
Perhaps next time around you can try to leave the corn stalks as mulch and add a bunch of straw down over the area you plant with corn. Corn manages to come up through anything. Should suppress the weeds long enough to have the sun blocked out from the think corn. :)
- cloud
So now I'm motivated to weed out my garden. The new prepared area looks great. And we love field peas. I buy them all the time in the frozen section of the grocery store. Maybe I'll try growing them myself next year... I have so many plans...
BTW, I put a link to your blog on one of my recent posts. I hope you get a lot of views. For sure, people will be inspired when they look at your garden. Have a great week.
Cristy - Thanks, I am ready for some fresh peas. Hopefully in August I will have some.
Jenny - The only weeds left are in the remaining five rows of corn. Each corn row is 25 feet long and my goal is to hand weed one row a night for the next five nights. Then my next planting of field peas won't be as hard to prep.
Stay @ Home - That is a good idea, I put the stalks at the road for the garbage man. My time is so limited right now with the new baby, so I have a tendency to depend on weed fabric. My limited time to commit to the garden is what caused the weeds to get out of hand to begin with. I normally spend about 30 minutes to an hour in the garden or processing my harvests per day. This is almost always at night after work which makes staying on top of things a challenge.
Bernadine - Thanks so much for sharing a link to my blog on yours. You can plant field peas up to early August and still get a harvest if you still want to try this year. :)
wow, i have to admire your hard work and determination! that would have taken me days, if not weeks!
do you can or freeze a lot of your harvest?
Thanks Kelli, it was a really hard job. I blanch and freeze everything. I try to grow only a few things, but a lot of it. Squash for example, my goal is to freeze 30 pounds this year. I freeze it in 2 pound increments because that is the amount our squash casserole calls for. That gives me enough to make 15 casseroles throughout the year.
I have never canned, but I have thought about it. This is the first year I am going make tomato sauce and canning would probably work better. The only issue is I don't have any of the canning equipment and I made a big investment last year buying an upright freezer.
You did a great job clearing that area. I have used landscape fabric before and it is a great timesaver. I'd rather use an organic mulch, but around the pool that is not possible. It always ends up in the pool thanks to the birds.
I feel your pain. I did the till-rake-till thing on 12 beds in March. It works great though. I know mulch heavily with free leaves from around the neighborhood. It keeps the weeds down and provides organic matter..so win-win.
Ed - Thanks, I like the landscape fabric but I wish I had more time to just keep up with the weeds.
Sustainably Modern - Yes indeed, thank goodness for tillers. It would be so much harder without it. Maybe I can stay on top of it a little better this go around.
If you ever get a friend w/ livestock...I was told just this week that they love to eat the stalks.
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