More Garden Pests

These fluffy seeds come from the most dreadful ugly weeds that seem to have made a major appearance since the fire. The seedhead on the right draping over the edge of my little Delft vase has 'exploded' deconstructing itseelf in the process. All those seeds disperse in the slightest breeze and seem to find fertile ground in ash and charcoal infused soil. The plant itself grows to a height of about three feet with impossibly prickly leaves seemingly overnight.

We share a narrow strip of soil which runs between our driveways with our neighbors. Technically I think it belongs to them and she planted a row of pineapple guavas and rosemary. It all burned and is now full of these weeds which have gotten so big that they are impossible to pull by hand, even if one could get a hand on it through the stickers. While I was down there pruning the roses away from our address, I used my pruning shears to cut down a small forest of these, Leaving them to dry out before they could scatter any more seeds. Once again, it is probably a losing battle.

Otherwise, we planted a few flowers in our mound garden and John worked on the soil in our herb garden, turning over what was there to reveal hundreds of squirming grubs which he presented me on a dustpan as a possible blip subject. I demurred and he fed them to the birds.

The only newspaper article I had the heart to read today was the one saying that the lockdown worked and saved many lives (except for the 600,000 who have died of Covid since March 2020) I shudder to think what the death toll would be if it hadn't worked. It also said that the shutdown didn't significantly damage the economy but I think the 3,000 houseless people living outside or in their cars in Santa Rosa would probably disagree with that assessment too. It's depends on how these pundits define 'economy' and how the statistics that are constantly thrown around on the subject of Covid are interpreted....