Garden Update, Weeds and All!

We finally started having enough warm weather and rain that the garden has started taking off. 
Unfortunately that also means the weeds are growing like... well, weeds. 

The fun part is that I got to harvest all the garlic scapes, even though I have no idea how I want to cook them. (I think I still have some garlic scape pesto in my freezer from last year!)

I also harvested a handful of snow peas for the first time ever. I think I may have picked some a few days too early because they were tender and juicy, but not as sweet as the others. 

 










The hops have grown up their twine, across the deck, and have finally reached the house. It's a good thing we extended the twine this year, as they are not nearly finished growing. They are only starting to put out little flower buds where the hops will be. 

We also got Eva a small kiddie pool to cool off in. She likes to stand in it and drink out of it, but doesn't like sitting or laying down in it.
 

As far as the hard work goes, we finished digging out those stubborn grasses surrounding the deck. The ax I bought really came in handy, but that meant Dear Husband (DH) was sore the next day. Eventually we plan to relocate the Day-lilies and Sweet William from other spots in the yard and surround the deck with those. (Yay zero maintenance gardening!)

 But our big project for this summer is clearing out the flowerbed. No problem, right? Except that it is overgrown with mint (nearly 3 feet tall) and some sort of invasive ground-cover. Awesome. 
 
I really should have taken a "before" picture, but you can see how tall and dense the weeds are next to the area we just cleared. First DH chopped down all the weeds as low as possible with the hedge trimmer. 95% of the plants are weeds, but I hand-trimmed around the few good plants that we wanted to keep.  (see below).

 











Just for good measure we sprayed on some Roundup, and then covered the area with cardboard and wet it down. The cardboard (or layers of newspaper) smother the weeds, preventing access to light and air. You wet it down to form a mat, and keep it in place. Ideally you then cover it with mulch, but we didn't have any on hand. 

 After a couple years the paper breaks down and composts, but by then the weeds and seeds have died. At least that is the plan, we will have to wait and see how well it works!

Just like us, Eva was worn out by the end of the day!