Took stock of each bed. Pulled the mibuna from this one - it had bolted and was way past its prime. I mixed the leaves from the pulled plants in with some salad greens. They were tasty - sort of like clover. Bitter and metallic, but somehow not unpleasant. Maybe I'm biased, since I grew them. I read that description, and it doesn't sound like something I'd want to eat. The onions and French sorrel stayed put.
Pulled the bolted brassicas out of this bed, and the weeds. Forgot to take "afters" of this bed and the one above.
Started giving heavy thought to this path. Believe it or not, in amongst these god awful weeds are 4 blackberry plants. Plans include pulling the blackberries out temporarily, digging up the weeds and 3" of topsoil, putting down pavers, and replacing the b.berries in containers. I'll need to construct some vine trellises, and I *think* I can make one of them double as a bottle tree. New planters for watermelon vines will go between the container planted berries. Need to get crackin'!!
Before.
After. This is as far as I got. It wasn't hard popping the weeds out, but I had such a jumble of other projects in my head, that I moved on... to....
The ARUGULA. I have mentioned before that it grows too well in my beds. In the image above, the massive green thing with all of the white flowers is a single planted arugula, and all if its wild-sown babies. Trollop.
This is the other "rogue" arugula I've mentioned before. I said it would get worse. I warned you! I did. For goodness sake. At least this one had the decency to plant itself in one of my beds.
Whereas this one, circled in yellow, just sprung up willy-nilly at the edge of the yard. All by itself. There were actually several of these, but I gave some to Tina. I hate letting my plants/crops go to waste, but when they're as prolific as this, it's hard to use them up. And there you go kids, a lesson in micro-ag.
Here's the "after" showing all 3 areas trimmed back or pulled out. If I'm not careful, this one remaining plant could get all kinds of out of control again.
Herbs are doin' well.
Beans are starting to sprout. The birds ended up snacking on some of the new shoots, but that's ok. I'll replant, and that'll give me staggered harvests. I'll also park my bird-cage over top of this. The bees can get in to pollinate, but the birds can't get in to steal.
Weeds and an artichoke in the middle. And the bead-thingies my mom and I made when she visited. She was so nice - she gave me hers, so I have 2! So pretty! But I thought I already weeded around this artichoke. Hmmm...
Now for the sidewalk bed. The scraggly, branchy thing in the upper left corner is my rock rose. I'm hoping it'll come back. I moved it and that should have been ok, but I didn't realise that the roots weren't well covered for over a week after the move. Mom says she thinks the branches are still green at the base, so I'm hoping for new life. And yes, I did improve the root/soil situation. Fingers crossed.
There is this GNARLY grassy-weedy devil thing trying to take over this sidewalk bed (circled in yellow). It bested me last summer, and I've posted about digging up all vestiges of it several times already in Winter 2009 and Spring 2010. Nancy suggested it might be "Bahia" grass? I googled that, and it looks similar enought that it might be, and different enough that it might now. Hmph. Anywhoo, here it is again, so here I go again, digging it out. GAH!
Combed the ENTIRE bed for it. But it'll come back, no doubt. Grrr...
My salvia is coming back. A few weeks ago, it was looking like a bunch of sad, sad sticks. Now it's bright green and about ready to send up flower stalks. (It's in the lower left corner of this pic.)
Time for lunch. Aren't these the cartooniest carrots you've ever seen? I gobbled one up in a huge salad, and saved the other for another day.
This bouquet is made with bolted lettuce and its flowers. And apples. 
So creative! Your vase of bolted lettuce is stunning. So simple, so chic! And great carrots - bet they tasted wonderful.
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