Escape

Sometimes I forget that nature is pretty good at propagating itself and managed to do fine for the 700 beeelion years leading up to the garden behind cohutt’s fence.

Nature usually takes full advantage of my latent garden slackness AFTER the harvests. We all know that weeds reproduce pretty readily without my help and the only real difference between weeds and “domesticated” plants is that weeds seeds don’t come in little $1.39 packets. So slackness pays.

I present my evidence:

Stomp over the escaped strawberry runners for months and dare them to try and root in the hard clay between the beds. HA! You see how intimidated they were not:

This was actually a convenient thing since the top tier of the strawberry pyramid had collapsed into the core and the plants on those payers fried last summer.

Next, leave lettuce a few weeks past its prime in spring plantings and by late June you’ll have a scraggy dandelion-looking plant sending seed floaters out to seek their fortune. These tough little Amish Deer Tongue lettuce plants didn’t stray far but managed to root in the hard clay next to the bed after a cold winter in the wood chips.

I took the hint and spread lettuce seeds around in a few inhospitable looking spots around the yard to see how they fare. Some are coming up along the edge of the patio brick in the area now exposed due to cutting back the boxwood in that area. Details on the success or failure of the pioneers will be reported in a few weeks.

(That’s all for tonight.)