When we were first getting ready to overturn our new garden space, our next-door neighbor offered the use of his tiller. The neighbor’s tiller is a beast of a machine. It is a heavy duty field and farm model that has about five-hundred horse power. That tiller actually makes me feel like I’m trying to hold a herd of elephants back from thundering away into the back yard.
We spread out compost and I tilled the garden, and we planted our soon-to-be delicious home grown herbs and veggies, and set to waiting. While we waited I put up a fence to keep our dogs and other pests out. We tended and watched the spring weather and waited. Soon sprouts of our veggies and volunteers from the compost were popping up everywhere.
And so I thought for sure that the tilling was over. One good till was all it would take. I felt a rather large sigh of relief wash through me. Micki, however said that as the weeds and grass began to grow anew, that we’d have to be vigilant and use our smaller tiller to keep the ground turned and pliable.
The best laid plans of Micki and Dave.
Over the next few weeks, we got busy. Actually, we stay busy. Our weekends are sometimes booked three weekends in advance, and though I love to work in the garden, spontaneously weeding is one I’d leave off my list of preferred garden tasks.
Add tiling to that list as well, please
So, though we were bringing in a good haul of veggies and herbs, our garden was nearly overtaken with weeds, which we had failed to deal with while they were yet small.
Soon, though we were still able to bring in veggies and Micki was drying herbs galore, neither of us wanted to go into the garden alone for fear that some prehistorically huge spider or beetle would snag us and drag us to its underground lair.
Then, on a recent weekend, we both found ourselves not as busy as usual, we decided to get on with it and hit the garden hard. We would weed, trim and bravely face the unknown beasts within.
Sounded like it would be easy.
After a solid hour of making little or no progress, I finally resorted to the weed whacker, trimming everything down to a nub. Not our veggies, mind you, just the weeds. I did accidentally mow down the parsley sign made for us by a local potter... ...and the parsley too.
During our excavation, we stumbled on a small spider and a good sized snake which added a little excitement to the dullness of the task.
Micki finally convinced me (no small task in itself,) to get out our tiller and turn over the newly trimmed soil, so that more weeds didn’t pop up and so our garden would continue to be more manageable.
Grudgingly convinced, I went and got out our little tiller. We then spent another hour, between us, trying to get the stupid thing to start. It patently refused. In a chorus of oaths of frustration, we finally gave up for the day and headed in to get cleaned up and work on some inside chores.
The tiller went and spent some time at our local small engine repair shop this past week and now runs like a two-cycle top.
I woke this morning feeling refreshed and itching to get some work done, so I put on my gardening duds, started our tiller and hit the garden hard.
I overturned all the earth that wasn’t sporting veggie plants and herbs. After the big storm last night, the ground was soft and almost luxuriantly smooth. I know that I’ll have to give another good once-over this week, and I’ll need to get a good hard-tine rake in the meantime, for all the rocks and excess weeds, but in the meantime, I feel like a big hurdle has been cleared.
Now, we can plant some late summer veggies without worrying about giant arachnids.
And the moral of the story is simple: from now on, to keep up with the weeds, I’m going to be a serial tiller.
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