An Easy Walk in the Garden

Today was our day for an easy walk. That said, it was pouring down rain from about 10:30 am on. I was anything but motivated to do my walk in this downpour, despite the fact that I just bought a rain poncho.

It's getting to be that time of year when I start thinking about my garden. When I went out and looked at it for the first time in about two and half months I discovered that milkweek, the spearmint that the previous owner did not plant in a pot, and other weeds had completely taken over my 6 foot by 24 foot plot of land and were now about 3 feet high. No the picture at the above left is not my garden, which is not in a planter box, but it gives you a good idea of what it looked like.

Horrors! Neither rain nor sleet nor snow nor anything else could keep me from remedying my garden's terrible condition! Okay, I confess that walking for walking's sake does not thrill me. Did I mention I am allergic to exercise? But I'll walk a mile for my own fresh basil!

Fortunately, I have some very good free advice. One of my amateur radio friends happens to be a master gardener. When I see him at lunch on Fridays, I take my opportunity to pump him for information! He suggested that I solarize the garden. This involves putting down plastic sheeting, getting it fairly airtight, and leaving it there for six weeks. Okay, I won't get my garden planted until the beginning of April, but that's okay. I really need to get rid of the weeds and prepare the earth.

The first thing to do was to pull up all the weeds. We had a break in the weather, so I took my opportunity. Milkweed is a tough one to pull up because it breaks off above the roots. This did give me an opportunity to explain to my son why it's called milkweed. (The broken stem oozes a milky white sap.) I got my shovel and I started turning over the roots. I guess that's fairly good exercise, even if it isn't a walk. The ground was sodden from so much rain, which made this fairly heavy lifting.

Although the rain restarted, I stayed out anyway and got the entire garden turned over and uprooted. About an hour and a half later, I could see dirt! Duane and I took out a wheelbarrow heaping full of weeds. Although my son pulled a few weeds, he also a lot of fun collecting beetles and other bugs and put them in his bug jar (which definitely stays outside!). By the time we were done we were soaked and our shoes were full of mud.

After a shower and change, we went off to OSH and picked up the clear plastic and u-shaped stakes necessary to solarize the garden. We didn't get that done today, nevertheless, I felt it was a pretty good workout, all things considered.