The Pretty Ferny Weeds in My Garden.

Attention: Avid and knowledgeable gardeners need not read this post.  Please move on to your next regularly scheduled blog.  I do not need the admonishments nor corrections.  Thank you.

Are they all gone? 

Good.  Here goes:

Saturday morning I woke at 5am to the sound of my phone alarm.

Fun Fact:  I have my phone set to wake me at 5 and 5:30.  In addition to this, my alarm clock is set to go off at 5:01 am.  I have been having issues with turning off alarms and falling back asleep... 

I did not fall back asleep that morning. 

Instead I rolled out of bed and went to soak in a hot tub with a trashy romance...

Is that TMI?  I fear it is.

Moving on.

I drug on  a practically new pair of hand me down gym shorts from Aunt Aleta, complete with Sooners across my bottom (again, probably TMI) and a newish red tank top.  I bought it the summer we moved here, which was only in 2008, so that's practically spanking new in my closet...

Anyway, I went out on the porch and read the eighth chapter of Daniel (y'know, after the trashy romance, I figured I was due for some prophecy), and drank coffee.  Four cups to be exact.  It's mornings like that when I question my Keurig, and think perhaps I should have just brewed a whole pot...

I noticed some weird brown lumps out among the cattle, and went to the fence to see what they were.

The Geese were out sleeping in the middle of the herd!  I guess there is safety with a herd of cattle in an open field from those wily coyotes...Heh heh.  Wily coyotes. Get it?  Wile E Coyote?

Never mind.

Anyway, I grabbed my camera to take a photo for you, my Gentle Readers, and looked down and saw the most lovely thing in my former garden.  Y'know.  It's former because now I am the proud owner of a RAISED garden, and the waste land that is my FORMER garden will one day be a lovely Victorian garden complete with alternating straw, brick and stone paths...the details on it are still sketchy.  Trust me, I'll keep you posted.

Return to topic:  I'm taking pictures of geese that are too far away for you to discern what they are, and as I reach down to scratch a mosquito bite (I regret to admit I'm covered in bites.  I can't seem to remember bug spray on my early morning strolls through the yard.  Apparently I haven't embraced the fear of West Nile) I see this: 

I have been eyeing these lovely ferny weed things for a while in my garden, excuse me FORMER garden.  When I stood right over it and admired it's beautiful small white blooms, I decided that it was time for action.

I happened to have three pots with nothing in them.  I had filled my other pots with flowers dug up from random places that flowers don't belong.  Like under the pool filter.  Or in the middle of the yard.  Or, here's an amazing survival story:  Zinnias pulled out of the cracks in my driveway!

I decided that there were enough of these pretty ferny weeds with the lovely small baby's breathish flowers to dig them up and put them in my empty pots!  Especially the two planters on the pool deck!  I always neglect those pots, and so everything I buy to put in them dies.  Digging weeds up and planting them on my deck is nothing but sheer genius, Gentle Reader.

So, I went to fetch the shovel, and began to dig.  Guess what?  We have not been watering our former garden.  We have been trying to create a wasteland/dumping grounds for  all unfinished yard projects out of it.  And being pretty successful at it if I do say so myself!  So the ground was hard.  I stopped and took stock.  In another spot, the ground was surely softer.  So I moved on...Of course 2 feet over it was just as hard, but not as grassy, so I managed to get my shovel in easier.  As I was digging I noted they had a tap root.


"Of course it has a tap root!  I hate weeds with tap roots.  If you don't get the whole dad gum thing, it just comes right back.  And the top half of this will probably die.  Dang tap roots..."


And my self dialogue continued until I suddenly had it free!  Yay me!


Guess what kind of tap root this lovely ferny weed with white baby's breath appearing flowers was?


A CARROT!!!

Yes, Gentle Reader, a carrot.  You see, last year I planted carrots.  However, I did not pick some of them in time, and they went to seed...

The really amusing part, is I dealt with the pesky things all last summer, all OVER my garden, but never registered what the darn plethora of ferny weeds were everywhere.  I just ruthlessly yanked.  Of course I did not need thirty dozen carrots growing in the middle of my tomatoes, so there ya go.

By the way, I have completely forsaken raising carrots.  Sure, they look gorgeous when those lovely little greens sprout through the ground.  And the carrots are a beautiful photo op with the foliage on it.  BUT THEY JUST DON'T TASTE SWEET!  Why is that?  I blame my soil.  I have resigned myself to buying carrots for 99 cents at my local store and peeling and slicing them. They actually get eaten that way.

Anyhoo,

So.  We will see what we will see.  But for a few days anyway, they sure look purdy!

Oh, and as I'm posting this I googled blooming carrots, and discovered through some weird bunny chasing that carrots that are allowed to bloom will cross pollinate with Queen Anne's Lace (which is abundant around here)  and this will make small, thin  roots which explains why the carrots I dug up were puny compared to last year. I also learned that both of these can be easily confused with poison hemlock.  YOIKS!!  The moral of the story?  Don't eat something unless you know that you know that it's a carrot...

Attention:  The above photo has nothing to do with this post.  But Studmuffin made this tool box in college.  And I secretly turned it into a planter for my front porch.  Thankfully, he liked it. 

What repurposing have you managed lately? 

P.S.  They all died.  Oh, I am laughing.  All that excitement and they all died.  Typical.