The Dirt

I begin this blog by explaining that I should be good at this. As a wee child, I toddled around the overflowing garden in my parents' backyard, expertly designed and cared for by two people with wildly green thumbs. My mom would sit for hours in the garden, painstakingly pulling weeds as her father had done before her. My father, with his degree in Botany, carefully tending to his plants as only someone who knows the kingdom, phylum, genus and species of them would. So I should have this gardening thing in my genes.

Ted (my fiancee) and I purchased our first home back in March, complete with nearly an acre of property and very beautifully landscaped front and back lawns. Surprisingly, however, the previous owners never planted a vegetable garden. Ted and I said that our first big project outside would be to pick a nice, sunny plot, and establish our tomato plants for the enjoyment of our friends and family (but most of all, us).

I have a lot to live up to. As any good Genoese girl should, I began with the basil, and pre-planted several varieties of tomatoes as well. Not only do Ted and I love to cook, we could definitely use the outdoor time and the added health benefits of garden-fresh vegetables. With Ted's gluten allergy, we don't often eat out, so finding inventive and fresh things to cook at home becomes challenging. Not to mention, I spend the most money at the grocery store on produce, and will surely save some money and time by just walking into the backyard for my greens.

So far, so good, right? I will endeavor to explain the layout of our backyard, and eventually I'll post some photos on here so it will make some sense to everyone. The entire backyard is fenced-in, and it is inclusive of the rear of the garage and two sides of the house. It is very flat directly off of the back deck, and there is a dual patio area behind the garage. Part of the patio has some stone slabs and is very flat, and sits directly under a large pergola. The second area of the patio is a wooden boxed-in area of red landscaping stones, part of which stairways down into the rest of the yard. The other portion is an un-usable area - about 11 feet by 6 feet, more landscaping stones contained by wood railroad ties. Perfect location for a garden, right? Just get rid of the stones, and there you'll have some dirt contained by the railroad ties, right?

As it turns out, professional landscapers must have put this particular rocky oasis in my yard. The first layer of rocks was easy enough to move over to another area which already had rocks on it. The second layer was a weed barrier, that each time I attempted to pull it up, would shred and disappear below the dirt again. Once I hauled the weed barrier out, the layer below was black dirt, with more landscaping stones. Ted and I then had to sift through the dirt to get the red stones out, then left it for a few days. When we returned, the entire area seemed to have become cement. What probably happened is the landscapers used one of those soil compacter/leveling tools, only remedied by a commercial tiller.

This is the point where Ted and I were faced with a decision: move to another location in the backyard and replace all of the red stones and shredded up weed barrier, or turn over all of the cemented black dirt and hope that it doesn't, somehow, magically cement itself again and become impermeable to water. Well, we chose secret option number 3- work through this disaster patch of landscaping hell AND branch forth into another area of the lawn. That way, when we get this tilled, we'll have normal soil from the rest of the lawn to intermix with this questionable area of clay plant-killer.

Today, I will be attempting to remove grass from another 11 by 6 foot area of the lawn. We have more than 100 plants to get into this space, so we realized that the initial area wouldn't be quite big enough. You know that expression, "Go big, or go home"? Well, I'm already home, so that pretty much leaves me with my 100+ plants and some quality time with my shovel.

Stay tuned for updates on my gardening fiasco...