…just weeding in the rain….
(sung to the music of “I’m Singing in the Rain.”)
Yup….that’s what I was doing earlier today. Dear Husband was going to work on the engine of his boat, but some work done at the yacht yard stymied his plans. I had finished with morning errands and chores, and was on my way down to the driveway bed when I found him collecting the dried material I had pulled from that bed last week. I had planned to hook up the John Deere mower and trailer to make short shrift of that cleanup job, but I was delighted to have the unsolicited help.
As he passed me on the way to dump the weeds and cuttings, DH said that he was going to go inside. There was a sprinkle or two of rain, and I said I’d be in in a bit. That bit lasted almost two hours before I was rained out.
DH gave me a hand marking off a line along the west side of the driveway garden. We put in two stakes and ran a line, so that I could see where I needed to spade away encroaching grass. I managed to hand weed the upper third of the west side of the garden. This next patch will be the easiest. It’s part of an attempt at “lasagna gardening,” which cleared an invasion of grass and soapwort out of the garden two years ago. I’ve left the bed lying fallow all this time, when I COULD have planted it last year. I hope to get it planted in the next two weeks with perennials, and then mulched with wood chips from our own cuttings and downed branches (another project to finish).
I was telling my sister that I’d had been thinking about how a landscaper would have done the work differently. As I was lifting out the chunks of grass and dirt, and shaking the soil from the roots, I was thinking that they would have used a shovel to lift the clumps of grass, toss them into a trailer and dispose of them. Then, they’d bring a load of compost or garden soil mixed with compost to fill in the area that had been excavated. It would have taken them a third of the time. What in the world was I doing on my hands and knees, shaking dirt out of grass roots??? I wish these epiphanies came BEFORE I started a job like this!
The gentle rain that had been expected, saved me from too much gardening the slow way. I headed in about 2:00 when the rain became cold enough to give me the chills. We’re still playing catch-up on precipitation, so I won’t complain, although I’d have liked to have finished the job. The rain was God’s way of reminding me not to overdo!
Arrrgh!!!
It's just my state of mind!
Another busy, productive day for you! There is a huge difference between the pros and us, isn’t there? I’m with you–shaking the dirt off of clumps of weeds.
However, in the beds along the front of our house, where grass from the lawn has invaded, “their” method is used–because it is clay—to which I wish to add organic matter. Since the spaded soil becomes less dense, and as I want the front portion of the bed to be lower than the lawn (so that sand and pavers may be installed for the mower wheels to track), I take out just the portion of the soil that has grass in it and dump it in the back yard–between the lawn and the woods–where the bird feeders are installed. The weight of the mower evens out the dumped grass/clay.
The only things that I throw away are the poison ivy and euonymous vines that have taken hold in the woods. They are too hard to kill to use in compost.
Cop Car….you understood! The soil in the driveway bed is the best on our lot. Dear Husband and I added compost for about 12 years…and it has a great texture. I wanted to save that dirt, not waste it.
I was talking with DH about a way to edge the driveway garden to keep the grass out. He suggested ringing it with a moat of sand, and then periodically spraying anything in the moat with Round up. I need to think on it a bit more. That much chemical can’t be good.
I think I’m going to use the landscaper’s methods at the front of our house, too. I need to get a LOT more compost into those beds, and the hands and knees approach isn’t going to work.