Duke's Garden

A few weeks ago my DH and I went on a dig to rescue some plants.  Today it is finally the day to plant.  Of course they need their own garden - so it's sod turning time.

First we have to cut out all of the sod, then turn over the soil - twice - so it gets really loose and the new plant roots have a good chance to grow, then we add compost and turn that in again, then we plant.  And we keep planting until all of the plants are planted.

So that's what we did.  It only took 11 hours of backbreaking labor.  I ache from head to toe and I got bugs in my hair.  This is gardening.   And here's the proof.

Check out my dirty knees.  A true testament to my gardening efforts!  You'll note that this is the second layer of dirt embedded in my jeans - the first layer dried and then it rained and I got to get muddy all over again.

Of course we couldn't stop once the rain started because I had pulled some daylilies out so they could go into this garden and they were sitting on a tray just waiting to go back into the ground.  It had to get finished today.  Besides, I couldn't just leave it all to my DH to do once I run off to the city tomorrow - it wouldn't be fair.  Tempting...but not fair!

So we just kept at it.  Normally we would have pulled out the rotor-tiller to turn over the soil and blend in the compost, but this bed is very rocky so that wasn't an option.  We harvested about 2 bushels of New England potatoes from the garden today.  That's what my grandpa called rocks - it's a good description because the rocks around here are mostly the size of potatoes.  They would have absolutely continuously clogged the tiller and we might have even broken a tine.  It was harder to dig by hand, but in the long run, it was worth the trouble.

At the end of the day we got all of the plants in and I think the garden looks alright.  They need some time to adjust, but they'll fill in nicely.  And as an added bonus, it started raining really hard right after we finished - so they are nicely watered in.

Next spring there will be a lot of flowers here - and I added the daylilies to give us a little reward this summer.  My DH will edge it with bricks this week (thanks hon!) and that will add the finishing touch.