Here is a view before the work began. The worst thing to see is that the green manure bed has borage that has progressed well; however, so has the weeds. Here is a bed that badly needed to be weeded. Once cleaned properly it was more presentable, but revealed some plants outside the rows. I must have been lax with the wind on the day of planting. Across the path, there is a second bed. Weeds were not a problem here, moles were. One mole, I should say. I exaggerate So many Borage and Phacelia plants did not even come up (Old seeds), but the ones that did were ruined. Nothing else fore it but to transplant small Borage plantlets from a row that did survive. They look sad now, but will come along I hope. The last showing is the second planting of onions. We cleaned them up and will let them dry out further. We had an unusual onion season this year. There were deformed ones from onion flies and a second planting that progressed slowly, but finally began to lie down.
Beautiful garden all ready for another harvest. Strange onion you say.. Some onions are doing odd things under the surface . Good job and clean up is well done.
Cheers Pac— ohhhhh, I see what you mean now. I left out a word, innit. Well, I have fixed that now. Thanks for pointing it out. You had a good ole laugh, didn’t you. Me too. Haha.
Those are mighty nice looking garden beds, mister Sjoerd. My onions were a complete failure this year. I think, part of the reason is that I start with such delicate small plants and I have trouble keeping up with weeding. So weeds take over. Maybe next year, I should try sets instead of seeds. Now borage! It's a weed in my garden. I used to grow it when I was beekeeping. It self seeded. Borage likes my garden. I didn't know you had moles there. They are annoying in garden beds.
Daniel— Thank you very much. Y’know, other gardeners here have had bad luck with their onions as well. Also with their beetroot…and some with their beans. In fact, I noticed that our beans had a retarded growth and diminished yields. I’m telling you mate, if the Spring doesn’t go right the effects are seen throughout the season. I planted the little onion bulbs right on time, ut it was the cold and the enormous amount of rain that followed. I also did not pay attention to when the onion fly and moth were active. That was my mistake and that on top of the climatic conditions…..well, it just didn’t work out well. I see that you had trouble keeping up with weeding them. Yes, sadly the weeds really do have a noticeable impact on onions, beetroot and even beans and strawbs— plants whose root systems are shallowish. The weeds just out-compete the crops sometimes; and early on, that is one of the most important times in the development of veggies. I hope that you will have the time and energy to “beat the weeds”, on selected crops next season. Hang in there. You surprised me by telling that Borage was an invasive weed there. I guess that if you used it as a green manure, you would have to lift the plants before their flowers opened. We use it in the veggie plots only. That is because if seeds do fall and germinate, they are apparent and get schoffeld down with the springtime bed prep. We are ruthless with weeds in the veggie plots. Yeah, we’ve got moles sadly. They are really fond of our beds. I think it is because we always have so many worms. It infuriates me no end when the moles run amok in the veggie quadrants. I can’t count the number of times that I have had to replant after they have destroyed young plantlets. Ach, but now I am just complaining. Thanks again for your comments here.
