Among
the "surprises" of my mediterranean gardening is how to
get rid of all the roots from the soil in preparation for new spring
planting, the roots of my last year crop and the roots of all the
uninvited plants sneaking into my vegetable bed. Up there, north, in
continental gardening I would work the soil in late fall, turn those
roots to surface and they will vanish in winter cold. Not here. The
roots, it looks, even like to be aired by turning soil, and they
prosper during winter.
The
insert on the photo on the right shows a bucket full of roots
extracted from some 20 sq.ft. of a single vegetable bed. By a
reasonable estimate, I took out 70 to 80% of them. They are fine
strings and it took me hours to extract them. Crazy. When enough is
enough?