Blackberries Growing Wild

            To the best of my knowledge, nobody around here intentionally plants blackberries.

            They grow like weeds.  Most people don't seem to like them.  They're not attractive plants.

            When we first moved to Tri City, we would pick berries from an overgrown explosion down the street.  They were gone the following year.  But we did have the opportunity to hike our brown hill to get to them.

            But now we have an opportunity to reach the blackberry goodness without having to leave our yard or climb the hill

            They have come into our yard, I'm guessing by the wind.  They are starting to chock the life out of our poor fir tree

            But we like the fruit - though retrieving it is quite a chore as the plant is a very unfriendly one with thousands of thorns that guard the berries and will prick and scratch at you if you're not careful.

            Roland made a fabulous blackberry sauce.  Although it was intended as a syrup, its thickness is somewhere between syrup and jam.  We have used for both and I like it.   

            The shape of the  blackberry reminds me of the raspberry

            I used to love raspberries, but now prefer the taste of the blackberry.  I also like them better than blueberries or Oregon's own marionberry.  I cannot tell them apart by sight, but I can with my pallet.  I am not too impressed with the marionberries lack of flavor.

unless I am wrong and we have been eating marionberries all this time instead of blackberries - though I don't think so.  Someone had brought us a marionberry pie last Thanksgiving and the berries were not all that tasty.  I like the pies, cobblers, and syrups that Roland makes from the wild blackberries.  I don't like the summer brown.

        

             In addition to dry grass, we have Queen Anne's Lace popping up all over

            I would rather have lush and green.  It's nice when it rains.

You’ve got to be kidding me

I had once heard a commentary that if you kill a spider, at least three more will show up for its funeral.  My husband said that isn’t true.  But it sounds accurate to me.

I went out to the garden on Tuesday.  I weeded so much of it.  I can actually tell the grass blades from the onions now.  But it’s not the naughty grass blades or even the net from this post that now give me trouble.  It’s the blasted pigweed that I wrote about in this post over a year ago.  

 

It’s back – right after I got rid of it – I couldn’t believe the growth that had taken place overnight.  I kid you not.  It had completely grown back (and then some) overnight and I have come up with even more uncouth descriptions of the pigweed that seems to live up to my first paragraph – only a pigweed instead of a spider with over 500 funeral attenders.  Give me a break. 

At first I did not realize that it was pig weed as I have never seen it quite that small before.  It’s easy to pull – but still.  Is that really how I want to spend my summer?  Pulling roots every single day?  The answer is NO – as previously mentioned, I don’t even want to be outside if it’s over 72 degrees out.

The first pigweed came up in the row of beets.  Excitedly I wondered if it was a beet and had gone to the computer in search of images that might show leaves of newly sprouted beets or pigweed.  Turned out to be the latter.  I found this picture among my search.

Perhaps I should it as it can be grown without my even trying.  For step by step instructions at click here.

Oh, how I wish our produce would grow like pigweed!  How amazing that would be to pull one tomato from the vine only to have ten more hanging there the following day, and then 80 and 400.  We’d only have to plant one of each plant and still have plenty because it would be growing rapidly as pigweed and we actually might not be able to keep up with it.  But there would be plenty to share with the neighbors who are in condos and do not have land for their own gardens.

Omigosh Mishaps in the Garden

    By no means am I a gardener.  Don’t know as I ever had the desire to be.  If I did, it was when I was younger.  Like grammar school younger.  And the sun didn’t seem to faze me as its heat wrapped itself around my body like an unwanted blanket – suffocating me.  I’d rather be indoors with the air conditioning and not pulling weeds in the garden.

    It seems the wind has blown some grass seed into our garden.  And the miracle grow is doing wonders on the grass and the beans and peppers.  But the grass is not a part of our garden and so I have been pulling up blades.  I can dig up the roots (well, some of them) if they are in the isle of the garden, but if they are sprouting in the same row as the plants (or some still seeds) they can’t be dug up as well.  

    Every day there are blades of grass.  Everyday I tug at the blades and dig and rake.  I am frustrated when they are still attached to the earth with roots so long they must reach to the center of the earth.  We need the plants to spread their roots.  How can they if the grass blades have such long roots?

    The pigweed pulls out easily.  When I am done pulling and tugging and digging, I will rake the area over.  It is then when I learn how well my digging has (or has not paid) I can tell the blades and weeds from the beans and peppers.  But I am still having a problem telling the onions apart from the grass blades.  So I know that I am not getting it all on that particular end of the garden.

      But the weeds are not my biggest obstacle.  I learned that fighting with the net has become my biggest challenge.  We put two up over the garden and one over the sad looking cantaloupe to keep the birds and dogs out.  Don’t know about the birds and the dog, but I’m thinking that if I trip over or rip the nets any further, they will keep me out.  Gardening is such an incredible pain.  May our produce be worth it.

Weeding out the Red-Rooted Bastard

          I once heard the following about an elderly woman with a very nice garden.  Someone had asked how she maintained without weeds.  She had set a goal to pull 15 a day.  I’m guessing she didn’t have to deal with pigweed.

          I actually have two nicknames for the weed that springs back to life the minute it is pulled.  The more offensive name mentioned in the title of this post and “Rapunzel” – though I think it grows much faster than Rapunzel’s hair.  But unlike Rapunzel’s hair, there is absolutely nothing special about it.  It’s a weed.  A multiplying undying weed.

          I will pull them up by their roots.  I will have a tremendous pile of these red-rooted pigweeds – more outside of the garden than inside.  It seems for every one I’ve pulled at least four to seven have grown back in its place.  How am I supposed to keep up with that?  And if we don’t pull them now while they are sprouts, they will be much harder to pull.

          When we moved into this house, there was a large tree growing near the house.  The neighbors’ driveway was starting to crack as the roots were pushing into the foundation.  She called it a trash tree and said it needed to be removed. The stump still remains in our yard and thus we haven’t seen the roots attached.  I’m certain that they are red (or were – it’s possible that they have died off by now)

          When I first saw the pigweed sprout up, I was certain that they were/are daughters of the trash tree – that could have been something else.  Whatever it was it wasn’t intentionally planted.  It just grew there and made a mess.

          I remember hearing the Biblical stories of Joshua defeating different cities with the instruction and help of our God.  They had to kill babies.  Little babies.  Innocent babies.  That bothered me for the longest time – because all babies are born innocent.  Even Hitler (no matter how hard to believe) was born innocent.  And yet that would have been the best time to get him – drop him, strangle him, drown him . . .

          There are so many films and themes and movies devoted to time travel.  What if?  What if we could save Kennedy?  What if we could destroy Hitler before he even knew what power was?

          One show depicts the midwife taking the baby and throwing it in the river.  Mrs. Hitler is devastated and insists that the child is replaced.  A kidnapped baby is brought to her that she may raise him as her own.  She calls him Adolf.

          And no matter how often the attempt to save him is made, Pres. Kennedy always ends up getting killed.  It has already happened.  Though the idea of traveling back in time to save him is appealing, it does not exist.  He died at the hands of whom?  Lee Harvey Oswald?  A conspiracy perhaps?

          When I think of the weeds and the time traveling non-changes, it makes it easier to understand and accept scriptures like Joshua 6:21.