How Does Your Garden Grow?

My hands hurt today. Achy breaky joints... I knew they would. We did a lot of yard work yesterday. Planted our spring bulbs, did some cleanup, spread some good dirt.

The challenge is that the land under our house is clay. When I dig far enough to plant a bulb I'm often into the clay. It's a crap shoot if the bulb will take. If it will find purchase for the roots because clay is solid. It's not really fertile soil for growth.

One of the ways we try to combat it is the good dirt. We've tried mixing in compost and wood chips and other vegetation to try and make a more fertile soil. And Brent has started just adding in good dirt. Potting soil. Raised bed soil. Actual dirt that things can grow in. We're mixing that in with the few inches of topsoil we have and hoping things grow. I also put a little in the hole I dig when I plant the bulbs. Here, have some good dirt for the winter, please grow.

I won't know until the Spring if it worked or not. I'll have no idea if I planted enough to look pretty. If what I planted will grow at all. And I won't know for a few years if they will last long enough to come back. The last time I tried planting in the side yard I got one year of flowers and then they gave up. It took all they had to break through the clay once, they couldn't do it again. But that one year was really pretty.

The crazy thing is that the weeds don't seem to have that problem. The thistles with their deep taproots seem to just plow on through the clay and survive. And though the flowers on them can be pretty, they will take over your yard and will stab your hands and arms with their prickly leaves. They make me itch.

So I ache today. It's hard work to dig in the clay. It's a lot of hand, arm, and shoulder work to dig deep enough and to try and break up some of the clay and to pull out the tap rooted thistles. All the while making sure I have on my long sleeve shirt, my gardener sleeves over those, my thick garden gloves over all of that just to make sure I don't end the day covered in hives. Just for the chance of a beautiful Spring. And the hope that it sticks this time.

It's work.

The whole time I was working yesterday part of the chorus from Oh Lord by Foxy Shazam (you may recognize it as the theme song to Peacemaker 2) was going through my head. "cause there will always be a wrong to your right, and there will always be a war somewhere to fight. And god knows I've had some rough fucking years, oh oh lord, oh lord, keep on keepin' on." And then over and over keep on keepin' on.

And yes, it's a metaphor.

We've got to keep adding in the good dirt. We've got to keep trying to plant the beauty in the world. We've got to keep pulling out those tap rooted weeds no matter how attactrive that flower seems, the base of them will damage you, and eventually they will take over everything and crowd out the things you want to grow. And even though we had one season of rest it didn't stick so we have to do it all over again.

And again.

And again.

If that's what it takes, that's what we have to do.

Keep on keepin' on.

And pass the Advil.