You keep it small, you never have to worry about burnout. Spend 20 minutes weeding, then go on your day. You keep it consistent, you'll never have to worry about shit getting too big on you. If you're weeding your entire garden in a go, you're working too hard. You might feel like you need to GET IT DONE RIGHT NOW, but that's just your monkey brain going to panic mode.
Relax. Do a little something every day and over time it'll come together.
Bonus: keeping up the effort in the off-season (doing bed prep, conjuring the spreadsheet devils) means less work in the swap-ass summer. Everything you do now pays dividends, and you can eat an elephant if you take it one bite at a time with occasional naps
they make 'dirt knives' that work way better than a spade for me most of the time. Especially if you got rocks. I have bent and broken a dozen spades but the dirt knife is like a spade+crowbar you can be rough as you like with it it cuts the dirt!
A lot of them will consider it a good (if early) deadheading and come back, if it's not cut all the way down and there are a few leaves left. What did you have growing?
I don't know. I bought a huge amount of a varied seed mix and threw it all down. Unfortunately, the plants were mowed all the way to the ground with little stalk left even.
Hard to say without knowing which flowers. I can say from experience that California Poppies, buttercups, chamomile, vetch and salvias will come back after mowing. They will be shorter though- they learn and try to avoid the mower. If you're in a zone with mild, late winters you can probably start new seeds now, if you can keep watering daily.
I’m probably a little extra nervous about straw/hay, I did work for a plant that compressed and shipped hay across seas. They were very adamant about the proper care around the hah as the bails love to spontaneously combust.
We were there rebuilding a burnt down storage barn.
I know loose it’s not an issue, but damn hay, you crazy with microbial action.
I didn’t believe it until I tried it myself. Don’t water cucumber seeds when you plant them. Only give them water after they emerge. They will! And they will be less likely to develop powder mildew.
This is from Steve Solomon’s book “growing organic vegetables west of the Cascades.” Amend the soil with fertilizer, then mound up a low hill 18” wide and 3 feet from other plants. Push your fist 1.5” down into the center of the hill this restores capillarity, which he talks about often and I’ve been restoring capillarity for all my seedlings this year and it’s an amazing trick. Water can pull itself up from deep underground using …. Shoot. What’s that word? Where water climbs up a tree? But when you till or fluff the soil before planting you break it up so that there is too much air between soil particles. The water can’t climb up. Think of a time you saw a deep footprint in a muddy ground. Not only did the footprint hold water better than surrounding soil, but even after it dried, at night the footprint could become wet again. This is from the capillarity of the soil. It’s compressed enough that water can travel in it.
Before I plant any seedling now I press on the soil, like with the edge of a board. Place seeds in the hole, or valley, then sprinkle soil on top. And water them too. But only with the cucurbits don’t water them until they emerge. And they will!
I did it with Romaine and it went great. I did water the romaine and I found the soil under them to be better at holding water. Also I just planted our tomato starts and pressed firmly on the soil around the stem. I’ve noticed the soil where I pressed holding water on hot days when all else is dry
Dwarf/small plants for small spaces. I spent years trying to grow regular sized tomatoes on a balcony and having them go totally wild. Now with dwarf tomatoes I can easily fit them in pots in my yard. Same with sweet peas- they make varieties that grow shorter, which is great if you don't have a super tall space to grow in.
In general find varieties that work for your space/garden and grow those. It's okay to not grow the same stuff as everyone else.
Also, grow potatoes in buckets. Gosh darn it but the home grown veg guy is right. It's just easier.
Label every seedling. Every single one. I learned the hard way when I accidentally planted mint in my flower garden that completely took over and took many attempts to get rid of.
If it's really crazy, might be best to take it apart in pieces. Don't try to pull out huge pieces, just trim with lopers or some shears if you're brave and treat it like eating an elephant. Spread it over a couple days, even. Like someone else said, trim it all the way back to the root ball and, if you want it gone, shovel it
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