Loving care and a three tined hoe makes for garden success

11HRG-9OHpL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

That love and care can make houseplants thrive is now unquestioned, but garden plants thrive on the same love and care. I am always stunned by the response I get from row vegetables after I have gone over the row, weeding and loosening the soil around each plant. Often within a day, they are perked up and have grown! If I add some manure tea after the weeding, they soar! It's one of the things that makes gardening such a joy--seeing that response from plants you have cared for.

The weather here has been so wet and cool and cloudy that everything in my garden has been sitting there waiting out the winter. Today is the first day of full sun and warmth. It is such a good feeling to get out into the sunshine and the garden and start working. Birds are singing away. There is a Bullock's Oriole nesting nearby, and a Western Tanager as well as lots of robins, including one robin who keeps fluttering against my windows, trying to either scare or mate with his own image.

One of the tools I use to weed seedlings is a three tined hoe. It scratches the soil and tears up small weeds. You can work really close to seedlings with this hoe and also hill up the soil around the seedlings. Most plants like soil around their base. It helps support the plant and sometimes, they will make more roots higher on the stem.

At Tine Hoe

June 27, 2011

Loving care and a three tined hoe makes for garden success