FarmTina

5 Things That Are Sprouting In My Garden Right Now

Hey dudes, sorry about my gloomy post yesterday! To get you excited for spring in my new Bushwick back yard, here's a peek at what's already sprouting.

1. My favorite of the flowers I grow, my hydrangeas, are growing nice and green in their plastic containers:

Why Weed?

Every garden has them: those unwanted plants that freeload off of the care you're giving your plants, and often grow even bigger and crazier than the plants you are constanly nurturing. Weeds suck up the water and fertilizer meant for other plants, they block out sunlight when they get too big, and their roots can choke and kill the roots of your intentional garden. Keeping your garden weeded is just as important as keeping it fed and watered. Let's talk about weeds!

IDENTIFYING WEEDS

A weed is simply an unwanted plant growing in a space that is being purposely cultivated for something else. For example, a dandelion is considered a weed when it sprouts up in the middle of your perfect green lawn. But a field of wild dandelions in a forest clearing is not only beautiful, it actually helps bugs and wildlife thrive through shade, food, and groundcover. Dandelion greens are delicious and edible, and the entire plant has been used for traditional medicinal purposes. But I still don't want them on my lawn. Heck, even a healthy thriving tomato plant can be considered a weed if it pops up unexpectedly in your bed of sunflowers.

My biggest weed fight is against the morning glories, shown at left on my balcony a few years ago. The little dudes sprout up in every single planting bed I have, constantly, from February through November. Morning glory flowers are beautiful and create great vines, and I keep a few pots full of them underneath window grates where the vines can grow and wrap. But the vines also produce a massive amount of seed pods that not only blow around in the wind, they can survive for quite a long time in bad conditions before sprouting. So I have learned to identify their seedlings at first sprout, and I weed out morning glory plants from at least one plant bed almost every day. That is not an exaggeration. Even if I got rid of my purposely-planted morning glories, I bet it would take years before I stopped seeing them sprout up in my garden beds.

Some weeds are pretty smart. For the last two years, I've noticed this weed that grows around my hydrangeas (among other places).

It has leaves similar to the hydrangea plant so I never pull it out in the Spring, but as both plants mature, it becomes very obvious that it's an unwanted weed. The growth patterns are different, the stems mature differently, and of course, they flower into totally different plants. But for at least 2 months, it's almost undetectable! Can you see the differences in the two plants above? Look at the patterns made by the leaf veins, the shape of the leaf edges, and the shininess of the leaves. Pretty cool survival technique. It's similar to a chamelion or a stick bug blending in to avoid predators.

So how can you tell if you have weeds? Well if you're growing a garden, you probably know exactly what you planted where, which means you know what you DIDN'T plant. And those are your weeds! When growing flowers or food, you want to keep the space around them clear of any unintentional greenery, especially if you can't identify the plant species. Many weeds have large networks of underground rhizomes that could be quitely killing your precious tomato plant. So even if the weeds seem harmless (or even pretty) from above, don't take any chances!

GETTING RID OF WEEDS

If weeds pop up in your garden, you have a few options.

What's Blooming Right Now?

Here's a quick update to let you know what's started blooming in my yard. The last few weeks have been very rainy, windy and cold here in NYC, so I haven't actively started gardening outside yet. However, many perennials are coming to life on their own-- check it out!

Hydrangeas (I wonder what color they'll turn out this year?)

Blueberry (I need to get a second one for pollination, last year my second blueberry plant was killed in the tornado)

Blue Salvia

Chives (I'm growing these indoors, too, to see if it works!)

Strawberry

Apple Tree! Apple blossoms!

Is anything blooming in your garden yet?

Photo Shoot in The Farm

FarmTina was the backdrop for a BustedTees.com photo shoot this weekend! Check me out sporting a pro-meat t-shirt in the farm. That's me in the corn field, with my pink hydrangeas behind me. The second photo was taken under the giant rosebush that hangs over the fence from my neighbor's yard. The photos were taken by Josh Roxas, one of my favorite photographers. You can buy this meaty tee here!

The Farm's First Disaster

Well my friends, disaster has struck on the farm. My boyfriend pointed out that the iPhone weather app showed the icon for "super freaking windy" this weekend here in Brooklyn. It was, indeed, super super freaking windy. Look what happened...

Coloring Hydrangeas

photo bytanakawho / CC BY 2.0

The former tenant in my apartment left her plants in the backyard, so in Spring I had pots full of sprouting plants but I had no idea what each plant was. I immediately recognized the 2 pots of hydrangeas that began sprouting pretty early in the spring, and one of the pots still contained dried hydrangea flowerheads from last year.

Hydrangeas are amazing: the flowers on the plant change color in reaction to their environment!