It's time again...

...to start fighting the battle of the weeds.  The green we see are grasses and weeds.  Spring is the time to cut and pull the weeds.  It's too dry in the summer for anything that is not watered to grow and of course most grasses and weeds go dormant in the fall and winter.  If we spend spring season trimming, cutting, and pulling - we will be good until the following spring for weed control. 

One of the earliest seasonal weeds to pop up is called the Pineapple weed.  This weed likes to pop up on dirt that has been loosened;  any dirt that has been hard packed for more than two years does not suffer from the Pineapple weed.  PW grows from February to June.  It grows similar to green clover - easy to pull out, very soft to the touch, and is low to the ground - however it is much more heat tolerant than clover.  I've figured out that weed control sprays are not terribly effective; there's pretty much only two ways to get rid of it - pull it out by hand or let it die off in June.  This year I've decided to let Fathertime do it for me.  Because PW is so low to the ground it's not a fire hazard of dead brush which is one of my biggest concerns about living here.  This is kind of what prompted my decision to let it die out.   Two interesting facts about PW - 1) it's edible, and 2) when crushed between the fingers it has a pineapple smell which is how it got it's name.