which, if you want to see how this works, is google-able under ‘prune espaliered apple tree’ on the web: it’s an art form going on from Roman times. We should have been doing this for a month or so, but we’re not too late. The rule is: let it grow 8″ then prune to the first 2 leaf set.
Been working, as you can see, on the rolling rewrite, which is going very well; and I threw on work clothes and came out into the coolth this morning to help Jane with the front yard, only to discover she’d just sat down, done in, by what she’d done. So I attacked a patch of new weeds by the rose bed with the mattock, my favorite weapon of small destruction. I’m really good with it, and it doesn’t hurt my back much. It hurts Jane’s so badly she’d rather try to dig them out by hand than use that implement, while I can peel back weeds and roots like a carpet when I get going—we can’t use the faithful Mantis there because it’s underlain by both roots from the hemlocks, and by irrigation hose. So it has to be the mattock.
Only about another 3×3 patch of that to go. We’re hoping to weedcloth a lot of the lawn soon and just leave it in that state for winter, finally admitting to ourselves that we’re not going to be able to do the plantings in it until next spring. Ground preparation is the huge thing with gardening: I’m learning that. You have to multiply the work you plan to spend on planting the bed by 10, in terms of time and effort, to prepare the ground, and then things go smoothly. We don’t have a weed or grass problem in the back yard because Jane insisted on ground preparation; and oh, are we glad now!
So—it will go to bed for the winter…strange to be thinking of that in early September, but we’re in the 40’s at night, and we will have to put the pond to bed too, maybe as early as late October, certainly by November, by which time it may be ice and snow, the way the weather has been going. This is a La Nina year, and that means heavy snow for us. For those of you who have a moderate snow problem, I can recommend the Toro electric snowthrower: it’s not very pricey for a snowblower; it can’t handle ice, but on new snow or even fairly compacted snow, it moves it, and being electric, it’s very light, carry in one hand, and easy to maneuver in tight places. Ours is about 18″ and handles a walk very easily.
Well, anyway, a tamer day. A deep breath. Sigh.
Oh, my…it sounds like a great deal of work. O.o I need sooo badly to weed the back yard, and I would bite the bullet and hire someone to do it but there are things scattered around, like daffodils & such, that we want to save, so we would have to be out there to direct them. There is a giant patch of oregano that went wild- it was here when I moved in 5 years ago & it’s gotten very invasive. I want to just spread weedcloth over the whole yard! And pick up the first apples. Fruits & veg are all ripening early this year.
Hint: mulch and weedcloth the entire thing EXCEPT the trees, poke the daffys back under, (or plant new ones if you can’t find them all, and have low-maintenance. Flag your daffys with wire flags next year. And allow just some of the oregano. 😉 More fruit trees.
An alternative to the weedcloth is a thick layer of wet newspaper under 3 inches of mulch. The daffys can poke through this. Better if you lay it down in the early summer after the daffs die down. It does smother all but the most godawful perennial weeds. The ones that it doesn’t get are the sort that probably have to be spot nuked with weed killer – or napalm!