Let me preface this whole story with the mistake we also made this past Spring. We live on a pile of sand.....as a result, the bare spots on our property that logically would make amazing garden areas are bare because there is too much sand there....I've tried it, and added compost and manure but I've never had a really thriving garden.
And so this year we decided to have a guy we call "Baboso" (which means slobbering idiot in Spanish) who does so lawn work for us and the Restaurant rototill a spot that is completely covered in grass.....needless to say Bob (the short version of the nick-name we've given him) never came to rototill for us. So we waited for him, and the Spring was dwindling away. I kept saying I wanted to just rent a tiller and do the work myself, but Gordon didn't want me to do that either.....and so we got a friend of one of the kids who works for Gordon to come and do it....and he did....and did a great job....and I pulled out grass and roots and we began planting. What I didn't think about was that there was a lot of grass there, I guess I should have rototilled in the Winter and covered it in a tarp and maybe killed the grass and continued rototilling....but it's not a mistake unless you don't learn from it.
And so early in the season my dear little Mantis' pull rope broke. I kept forgetting to call someone, or try and fix it myself, but I kept putting it off.....and I spent this season fighting with the grass that kept coming back.....and I did a pretty good job of keeping it at bay, until it got hot.....and because working in the heat is a sure-fire way to make myself weaky, I just did a little weed pulling and adjusting, all the time saying that I needed to get the Mantis fixed.
I also had greedy eyes when I was planning said garden....and instead of making a super big garden, I only had the kid rototill a smaller patch to make it easier on him (it was a tough job of work) and so I think my rows are closer that I would like them to be, making it kind of harder to weed.
Well....the grass nearly won....except I finally got the Mantis fixed.....the other sad part of this story is that for some reason I am decidedly incompetent, when it comes to 2-cycle engines and for the life of me cannot get my little "Chick Rototiller" as some kid called it started....and so I have to ask my husband to start it for me.....and today he did.....and I did battle with the grass in my rows and now have a pretty weed free garden and I was even able to hand-weed the sections that are too close together.
So....I felt powerful stomping and crushing those weeds, the loose dirt falling into my holey shoes and smelling the 2-cycle gas and dirt and knowing that I was caring for my sweet little garden and was doing it myself (even though Gordon had to stop what he was doing to come and start it for me)....but there is noting better than freshly tilled dirt that you walk in in your beautiful garden and the wonderful feeling of pulling the rest of the weeds yourself and feeling like you are keeping your covenant with the space you reside.
So....lessons learned this year:
- If you get a guy to rototill for you, have him do it early in the season so you can have most of the roots and stuff pretty much gone....AND get a guy who wants to work for a living and has a work ethic and cares about what people think of him
- Don't feel sorry for said rototilling guy and have him make the garden space bigger so you can plant all the plants your hearts desires.
- Rototill at the end of the season and cover with a tarp....and rototill a few times before you actually plant the garden
- And most important.....learn how to start your Mantis before next year.....because really how can you write a blog about your "Wabi Sabi Farm Life" if you can't even get your Mantis going.
And that is the story of how I finally got to do battle with the grass that keeps showing up in my garden with the right weapon....and got the job done.
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