This weekend’s free time in the garden has been devoted to the cathartic task of attacking an inflow of ivy that seems to be taking over the winter’s empty beds. Not nearly as aesthetically pleasing as the decor to the left, the ivy here at home seems to be literally taking apart  my back garden’s brick wall as well as the cement foundation of the shed. Bad news.

Not a fan of chemicals (and not finding them very effective in previous experience), I decided to simply dig in and dig up as much of the ivy and its roots as I could. The hard work felt good, even if it’s left me aching a bit today, though I’m also not holding out hopes that the problem is solved. It looks like it’ll be a steady battle for the summer and probably for subsequent seasons. I also decided against committing the bed I cleared yesterday to vegetables as I’m expecting the ivy will do again what it did last season and take over. I did spread some random flower  seeds that I happened to have on hand though (Nasturtium and even a few Black-Eyed Susan seeds), mostly out of spite.

Meanwhile, plans for spring are rolling. I’m going to get more tomatoes into the ground rather than in containers this season. I also have to work on a slightly better design for my containers that I will be using for other vegetables. It seems that drainage issues may have caused some problems last season, especially for my tomatoes. I’ve heard that gravel isn’t necessary in the bottoms of containers, so I skipped it last year. But I’m either going to add it or drill more and bigger holes into my container barrels this season.

Eggplants are still well in the plan, probably in containers. I’m also adding more Asian vegetables, including baby bok choy and choy sum (油菜), along with more scallions, lots of herbs, and at least one kind of chili pepper…

My other question of late is how far to trust the potting soil that’s left over from last season. As mentioned, the tomatoes had some issues last year, so there is reason to consider dumping the stuff and starting fresh. On the other hand, potting soil is not inexpensive. I’m wondering whether to give it a gamble, mix the leftover soil with new materials and try it out…


Image Credit: Splityarn