Endeavours in Gardening

So a few weeks ago, whilst staring out the window at the falling snow (in a place where I was assured that it rarely snowed--no, I am not going to let that go!), I decided that it would be a good idea to start a vegetable garden in the back yard.  I do have some experience with gardening, if you count helping my dad with his when I was about 12 years old.  Other than that, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.

Luckily, there are perks to living in the old servant's house on an estate--there is a groundskeeper for the whole estate who knows a thing or two about tending to a garden.  I actually met the groundskeeper, Bob, during my first week here when a package meant for Hildersham Hall (the estate owners' home) was accidentally delivered to our house.  I wasn't quite sure what to do, but I just happened to look out the window and see a man clearing the snow on the driveway.  Since I hadn't met our landlord, I assumed that that was who it was.  Turns out I was wrong, but luckily Bob is really awesome and agreed to give the package to the landlord when he saw him.  We ended up talking for over an hour, even though I was standing outside with only my slippers and sweatshirt.  Bob is a really interesting guy, and seems to know a little bit about everything!

A few weeks later when I told him that I wanted to start a garden, Bob helped me scout out the best location in the yard, and even agreed to put down some weedkiller so that I wouldn't have to pull up all the grass.  He came over on a warm, sunny day to spray it.  He finished within about 15 minutes, but once again he ended up staying and chatting for over an hour.  In fact, the only reason he ended up leaving was because I got stung by a bee!  It figures that would happen on the first warm day of the year!  Very strange circumstance, too--I put my hands inside the pocket of my sweatshirt, and was stung on my palm by the bee that had apparently been napping in there!  It's been about a week, and I'm proud to say that my hand is healing quite nicely.  It was starting to itch quite a bit, but it turns out that a nice rubbing of mud really helps with that!

Anyways, after Bob sprayed the yard to kill the grass, he told me that if the weather stayed dry, everything should be gone within a week or so.  Of course, it has rained and/or snowed pretty much every day since he said that.  So, unfortunately, the grass and weeds are still very alive and I now get the oh-so-fun task of pulling them all out.  Luckily, Bob has started a little bit of it for me, because he had to dig up one side to put in the new fence that he graciously offered to install around the perimeter of the vegetable garden to keep out the rabbits.  He even put in a nice gate and painted everything, too!  Have I said that I think Bob is pretty much the most awesome person ever?

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After a week of watching the rain fall and nourish the grass that I was attempting to kill, I finally gave in and decided to pull up the grass myself.  This doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but it turns out that a plot of 25 by 15 feet is actually pretty big.  Also, I only had a spade to work with.  I started to dig up a bit with that, but after an hour of work I'd only managed to sort of move the dirt around in about a 4 by 4 area.  Luckily, Bob tends to also have great timing, and he showed up just in time to see me ready to give up in my attempts.  He showed me how to use my spade to cut the sod into strips, and even lent me his antique sod lifter to make rolling it up even easier!  With this new tool, I was able to remove about a third of the grass in just about an hour!  Even still, I definitely got my work out and can assure you that I'll get a good night's sleep tonight!

My progress so far.  I'm pretty proud of myself!

Now, I think I'm going to wait until Scott can help this weekend to pull up the rest of it.  Turns out that dirt and grass can be quite heavy, so he also gets the honorable task of moving the rolls of sod that I've created.  He'll be so excited to hear the news!