I wish I had weed-free fields. I especially feel this way when I’m out there harvesting something like carrots. Wow, harvest would be 400% easier if I only got to handweed these things about 3 weeks ago!
That’s why it’s tough to drive by some immaculate weed-free garden. I turn my head. “Man, good work,” I say to myself. But I get garden envy. Think about what it would be like if things were that clean and clear. But then I start to rationalize the miracle. Well, that garden is super small compared to what you got going, Ryan. I’m sure that guy is retired and has all the time in the world to take care of that 20 x 30 plot.
But then I visited Food Farm by Duluth. They have 200-foot beds of carrots with nothing but carrot tops – I didn’t see a weed. Onions weed free and a lush green. These guys grow like 16 acres of vegetables at this quality and I can’t even see parts of the rutabaga patch! And I grow less than 4 acres…what gives?
Garden envy is real. You might not have it with vegetable plots like me, but I’ve known many a homeowner who salivates over those garden coffeetable books where someone built out a manicured Japanese garden in the backyard in Cleveland complete with a Koi pond and awesome custom-built bridge. Or maybe some outdoor kitchen with brick pizza oven to one side of a cedar arbor and cobblestone patio.
Garden envy, however, can be a powerful motivator as long as you get out of the pipe-dream stage. I have not yet build my own Japanese garden on the hillside near our side deck (although I have had this dream), but I have tried improvements on the farm based on others. For example, this year we’re growing onions in clusters of 3-4 onions on landscape fabric, inspired by Food Farm who grew on a plastic mulch. Onions are notoriously weeds since they don’t throw much shade. So far, I’m impressed how much the much is keeping them clean, but the jury is still out whether these onions will get to a good size. Hmm. Let’s keep trying.
In the box:
- Sweet Corn: Trinity, our earliest variety.
- Carrots
- Beets
- Sweet onions
- Yellow potatoes
- Cilantro
- Fresh dill
- Cherry tomatoes
- Daikon radish
- Green pepper
Lida Farm 