Taming the Sneaky Weed - Ground Elder

So it is now routine.
I rise around 7am and make my way to the kitchen to prepare coffee. I dress, still layers and wool, the early mornings are cool, and taking the hot coffee, go out to greet the day.

The days have been wonderful this spring. Dry, not freezing and bright, though often with a linger of mist on the Loch. The birds are of course so busy that they scarcely notice my passing. The dog is much slower getting up nowadays so they do not have to avoid his untargeted bounds and his nose poking through into bushes.

Most mornings I weed, I weed and weed and weed.

Ground elder is the target of my attention and there is something very satisfying, freeing a patch of ground from its encroaching spread. But is it is triumph of hope over experience. I know it will be back and I know I will miss some, but it still gives a glow of satisfaction as I drag another bag of weeds back towards the compost area. Yes we do compost it, but it needs to be in the centre of a heap and it needs to get Hot, so careful composting is the order of the day.

The other alterative is to leaves it to rot down in the bag. We turn all compost bags inside out so they are black side out, that means they not only look better they warm up better and so help composting start faster.

Of course you must be sure there are no holes in the bag…or it escapes. This is my secret fear, that ground elder will take over the entire woodland and strangle out all the bluebells and lady’s smock …this is the stuff of nightmares.

Hence I walk through the garden with my eyes downcast. I need to remind myself to breath and take in the fresh foliage and view, and I do, but I can’t afford to let the ground elder (or dandelions) slip.

Time for breakfast and as it is a bank holiday I will have some time to do some of that other most pleasurable part of gardening, planting.