Much of a mulchness

2014	Snab	Brize
January	34.5	155.2
February	42.5	105.7
March	21.0	56.6
April	23.4	62.7
May	58.1	80.5

We finally got a bit of rain but finished the month with four scorching days in a row. So everything is going rampant, and that includes the dreaded chickweed. But after a few years of battling, I think I am getting the upper hand. 

Anything that doesn't like the competition or likes consistent available water is given a head start by growing through black plastic. Here you see my garlic, beyond that will come my celeriac, and then the strawberries. Onions and shallots get the same treatment. 

 

The edible-berry-hedge to the left (Amelanchier alnifolia and Aronia Melanocarpa, if you're asking) sits in a bed of bracken litter scavenged from the forests during the winter. (Well, what else is there to do?). Likewise the gooseberries, while the ever-expanding blueberry patch prefers pine needles. 

Any defiant chickweed that makes it through against the odds finds out out why it is so named and, along with an unfortunate assortment of slugs, wireworms and leatherjackets, succumbs to the resident pesticides.