He got muddy water

The other day I was watering the garden, and a pool of water began to form. It reminded me of what Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut currently living in space abroad the International Space Station, had said in a video:

"We are going around the world eight kilometers a second. The sun and the earth are sort of in a fixed geometry, but we’re moving, so the angle between us and the sun and the earth is changing, and therefore the reflection of the sunlight changes, so we get a sun glint off the surface, and you can see water on the surface so nicely in the sun glint... pick out rivers and lakes and ponds. You can follow a whole river as the sun glints along it, something that you could barely see normally, and you catch the sun’s glint and it glows like a silver worm or a vein of ore, and then the angle changes and it’s as if someone turned the lights off on the river, and it wakes up."

Chris Hadfield's view of the Saint Lawrence's mouth from the ISS.

The water was just a puddle until the sun illuminated, and it mirrored the sun in its intensity.
  
Today I noticed that the water from the hose was beginning to erode the soil. The plot isn't leveled, with some soil stacked higher than other areas, so when I water the plants, it streams down and mimics a river. I also noticed the return of the mint. The roots are so frustrating. I'll be sure to trim the roots next time before I plant a plant.

Plant Wars: Return of the Mint

The earwigs weren't present today on the lemongrass, but snails were! I actually think snails are quite charming, although they are considered a garden pest.

To sum up this post, the garden has become so diverse. It has so many facets to it, and it surprises me everyday. I notice its new things constantly!

Find me in my field of grass

I've been watering the herbs, and earlier today I decided to trim the lemongrass while I was at it. All was going well until I noticed an earwig perched on the underside of a grass. It caught me by surprise, but I ignored it and continued to trim the dead sections of the plant. Then I realized there wasn't just one; there was a whole colony (maybe I'm exaggerating). But I put down my scissors and stopped gardening for the rest of the day. I researched if earwigs and lemongrass had any relationship, but nothing came up oddly.
Anyway, later this week I plan on planting some tomatoes and chili peppers! They'll add nice new colors to a blanket of green. Since tomatoes are fairly easy to grow, I'm going to use seeds from grocery store tomatoes. Hopefully no other bugs are attracted to them.

Desmond has his barrow in the market place

Today my dad and I went to the swap meet and purchased ten herbs, including mint, basil, and oregano. When I went to the backyard later in the day, I was surprised to see that new weeds had already sprouted up, even though I had recently weeded them. Like Dr. Alan Grant from Jurassic Park would say, "Life found a way." My mom and I weeded some of the ones not in the plots to make the garden a bit more aesthetically pleasing. I had to cut off some overgrown roots from the new guys to prevent another Mint Root Invasion of '12-'13. And this time, I added tomato cages to some of the herbs so that they would grow neat and orderly in an upward direction. My next mission to plant some tomatoes and peppers in Plot B.

There beneath the blue suburban skies

I finished pulling out the mint completely and the weed that I mistook for a tomato plant. The mint roots put up a fight! Another gardening technique I learned that you may find helpful is that if the roots are very stubborn, dig around the roots with your hand or a gardening tool to expose the smaller roots. Once a majority of the roots are visible, it should be much easier to yank out. Pull from the largest/thickest root so that when you do pull out the main root/"backbone," the smaller ones also get pulled out.
I also loosened the soil from the two larger plots with the garden claw. The soil was already moist (my dad was watering other plants in the backyard) so that made things a lot easier. However, the little bits of weed drank up that moisture, and it's incredible how fast they grow! New weeds popped up overnight that weren't there yesterday.
To make things clearer, Plot A is the largest garden plot, Plot B is the second largest garden plot, and Plot C is the smallest garden plot. Plot A will probably be home to the herbs, Plot B to the vegetables, and Plot C to the flowers since they shouldn't take up too much space. But then again, it would be more aesthetically pleasing to have the flowers in Plot B so that they'd be more visible since Plot C is in the back of the garden.
 Next on my to-do list is to loosen up Plot C's soil and buy seeds or obtain some already-growing plants from other gardeners. The project has gone along nicely and in time for most of April. The hardest part is over, and now I can begin on the more enjoyable part!

Plot B

Plot A

Plot C(I moved the garden decorations to this plot so that I could loosen up the soil of the other two plots.)

There's nothing you can do that can't be done

I finished weeding the two smaller garden plots entirely (except one weed that I mistook as a tomato plant), and I basically uprooted the majority of the mint (my dad helped pull out the "mint mound") from the largest plot. I'm still contemplating whether or not I should pull out the lemongrass from the largest plot so that I can start gardening from a clean slate, but I might just leave it there and transport it elsewhere if need be in the future.

Before and After

Here are some things that I learned while weeding that you may find helpful:

1. When trying to pull out a weed that is growing in a groove, pull the weed towards a direction along the groove. For instance, if a weed was growing in a groove running left and right, either pull the weed from the left or from the right. Go with the grain!
2. When trying to pull out a weed that is rooted strongly to the soil, move it in a circular motion a few times to loosen the soil.
3. If the soil is packed very tight around a root, loosen the soil with your finger or a tool.
4. When weeding, make your best effort to pull out the roots! It will be worth it in the long run as you'll have less weeds to deal with.

I'm going to loosen the soil some more with a garden claw since the soil hasn't been disrupted in months, and then I'll be able to begin planting!

"Springtime is the land awakening.  The March winds are the morning yawn." - Lewis Grizzard