FROG HOLLER FARM - August 8, 2020


Our view from the packing area



NOTES FROM THE FARM - WEEDS!

From Adrian Higgins, Home & Garden writer for the Washington Post:

If you had to define the purpose of gardening, the answer might be that it is the act of crafting beauty from nature.

That would be the poetic response. At its base, gardening is about holding back the immense, ravaging forces of weeds. A garden is, metaphorically, a quivering bunny rabbit surrounded by snarling wolves.

This sounds like hyperbole. It is not.

In the Mid-Atlantic, and surely in many other regions of the country, the weed pressure is unrelenting in every month of the year. In the heat and humidity of summer, the pace is supersonic.

Well, it sounds like Mr. Higgins has been weeding a lot - or maybe too much :-)! But here's another expert chiming in  - from Timothy Tilghman, the head gardener at Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, N.Y., a 43-acre former estate on the Hudson.

“If you can’t enjoy weeding, you won’t be a happy gardener,” said Mr. Tilghman, citing its importance to a garden’s health and visuals. “Everyone enjoys the neatness of a fresh planting, but unless you’re willing and eager to get in there and weed …”

So where does the Frog Holler crew fall between these two weeding attitudes? Holding back ravaging forces, or hoping to create order? They haven't published any articles about weeding to our knowledge so we will say they are willing, if not eager - determined, if not combative - and very good-natured as they go about the seemingly endless nose-to-the-ground, hands-in-the-dirt task of making space for our chosen plants to grow.

We realized that if you met any of our crew on the street, you might not recognize them, as most of our photos show them weeding away with their heads down. This week's cases in point:

Cleaning up the next beet patch

Liberating the tiny carrots (can you see them?) from too many weeds. This patch almost got away from us! 


We asked the crew to look up for this shot. These are the onions in early spring.






Neighbor and retired dentist Steve who grew up farming and missed weeding! He volunteers regularly and led the charge into the onion patch this spring (and into the carrot patch this week)!



More heads down as the crew plucks the results of their weeding labors from the onion patch this week.







Onions curing in the pole barn along with their garlic neighbors. Harvest complete!

And we don't think all weeds are bad; as some of you know, we offer fresh-picked medicinal herbs (aka weeds) on our produce ordering site, thanks to the interests and efforts of crew member Milan. And we are grateful that we live on a diverse piece of land that is chock full of wild plants, woody plants, pollinator plants all living together in a happy weedy jumble. We just ask for a few acres of admittedly unnatural rows and appreciate the efforts of the crew to maintain a little order!



Well they can't weed me from the garden!


Have a great week everyone!

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