The Accidental Gardener, Part 3

The yard already had a planting bed that was in sorry shape, overrun with weeds and the skeletons of long-dead tomato vines. It was also partially shaded and I wondered how successful the previous owner had been. If I wanted to grow summer vegetables I was going to have to dig into the sod and rip it up. Miss Claire and I determined the sunniest spot and marked it off into two 4x16 beds. We then stood there silently, each of us no doubt contemplating how much muscle it was going to take to dig up all that grass. I could already feel my muscles aching and I hadn't even gotten the garden spade out of the garage.



Finally Miss Claire spoke up. "I'm calling Jack," she said and whipped out her cell phone. Jack is the husband of one of my parishioners, and I do believe that he owns every tool in the world. Since he only lives a few blocks away he was at our house in no time and soon we were rolling towards the equipment rental place in search of a sod cutter. Once at the shop, Jack stood there looking at the machine and thinking out loud. Finally he said, "I have a better idea. Let's go!" So it was back to the house, and within 30 minutes Jack reappeared with a small tractor! The sod was neatly scooped out in less than 15 minutes, leaving two large gashes in the lawn. Naturally, we didn't want to waste all that good topsoil, so we cut each piece of sod to a manageable size, shook the dirt back into the beds, and carefully plucked each worm out of the cut sod and placed it where our garden would be. By the end of the day I was filthy, exhausted, and aching in places I didn't know could hurt.



We weren't finished, of course. It was off to the garden supply center for compost and peat moss, which we tilled into each bed. Then it was off to the farmer's market for seedlings, and that's where I first had an inkling that I was either going crazy or discovering a new vocation. I bought 3 kinds of tomatoes, beans, zucchini, eggplant, bell peppers, corn, and cucumbers. Meanwhile, Claire had taken over the weedy old bed and had prepared it for planting. This bed received watermelon, rhubarb, and strawberries, which were donated by Jack's wife Gail. After another exhausting day, I gulped the maximum recommended amount of Aleve and staggered off to bed.

The next morning we learned about the critters.