No surrender!

In April I planted garlic in both my veggie garden, and in MIL's, and it was quickly swamped with my 'love to hate' weeds: soursobs, and back then I wondered how many times I would have to weed out this crowding green fiend. Today makes weeding #2, and you're about to see why.
These plants are something else, they really are. These shots are from MIL's garden.
Somewhere in this mass is garlic:


Here's the whole bed from a distance. There's also coriander and capsicums tucked away in the background.


The coriander has managed to rise above the soursobs (it's actually trying to bolt but it's too cold), it's doing fabulously; so lush! We need to make lots of luscious SEAsian food to use it up.


The rainbow chard in the next patch over also needs some attention.


This morning there was a gap in the clouds so I was able to clear the garlic section of the bed. When I say 'clear,' I mean 'rip out random handfuls of weeds, leaving lots of roots and bulbs in the ground ready for round 3 in a few weeks.' Then it started to rain so this was as far as I got.But I will not give in! I refuse to surrender to the green hordes!



But, weeds aside, I did something positive in the garden too. I collected a whole heap of dried Nigella pods (and a couple of green ones for luck). Nigella, or Love-in-the-Mist, is one of my cottage garden favourites. I've looked high and low, but couldn't find either seedlings or seeds in any stores, so I have to do it properly (ie not cheat and buy it in a packet!).


I crushed up all the pods and took most of the big bits out of the bowl, and was left with at least a table spoon of seeds, masses for 1 minute of pod collection, and 30 seconds of crushing! I think I'm going to sprinkle it in my rose garden and down the fence line and let it go nuts. It self-seeds readily (or at least it does here at MIL's) so I'm hopeful of a lifetime of those soft and frothy blue and green flowers.


PS. I have some exciting news relating to plants and gardening, but I have to be a bit Secret Squirrel about it for a little while yet (but as it's Australian plant related, perhaps it should be Secret Bilby instead?) Stay tuned :)