Maybe it's because I own P.O.S. equipment, or maybe it's because I don't know what I'm doing, but every time I start a gardening project, the S. hits the fan.
During the Testosterone Festival that is the Labor Day cookout (see previous post), I casually mentioned that I needed to get in the tomato patch, pull up the stakes, and prepare that ground for greens. Evidently, Pop-Pop was listening, for when I came home after work Tuesday afternoon, Pop-Pop's old Ford pickup was parked beside the tomato patch, and one of The Nephews was knee-deep in grass, unhappily wielding a post-puller. The stakes were mostly askew but still standing, held somewhat upright by the cotton ropes that had been the Florida weave for the tomatoes. I parked my Jeep in my driveway and walked across the road, and asked The Nephew, "Who talked you into this?", already knowing the answer.
"Pop-Pop," he grumbled. He wiped his sweaty brow on his shirt sleeve and went back to fiddling with a knotted cord.
"Let me change clothes, and I'll come help you." I came back to the house, changed clothes, put on my gardening apron, and went back to the tomato patch. While I un-did the ropes, The Nephew finished rocking the posts out of the ground and heaved them into the truck bed. When the job was done, he jumped in the truck and left, probably afraid that I'd think of something else for him to do if he stayed longer.
I looked at the rectangle of ground that had been the tomato patch, dreading the work that it would take to get it in shape for greens. The grass, as I said, was knee deep. A garden tiller wouldn't cut the mustard, not even Big Red, in this much grass. It would have to be mowed first.
Saturday morning, I cranked the riding mower, set the blade to the highest setting, and very slowly mowed the grass down. I brought the lawnmower home and told The Husband, "I'm going to Pop-Pop's to see if I can crank the big red tiller, and then I'm going to plow up a spot for the greens." He told me that if I'd wait until later in the afternoon, when it was cooler, he'd help. He didn't have to suggest it twice. I came straight in the house, kicked off my shoes, and plunked down on the couch with a book.
A few hours later, his brother came by and asked for help loading the grill he'd taken to Pop-Pop's for the cookout. They left together. I kept right on reading. A while later, The Husband came home, all hot and sweaty. "How much space do you want for the greens?" he asked.
By this time, I was totally out of the mood to run the tiller, and I told him so.
"But we've put Uncle B.'s disc on the tractor," he said. "We're plowing the ground with that."
I was ecstatic, and ran out to see what was happening. They'd already been plowing. I stepped onto the freshly-turned earth and was immediately disappointed. The disc had barely skinned off the grass. There was hard ground beneath my feet.
"It's not plowed very deep," I said.
"It don't need to be all that deep for greens," Pop-Pop assured me.
"Cool. Tommorow I'll rake up some of the grass clumps, smooth out the soil, and plant the greens."
I went back to the garden about noon today. The more I raked, the more disappointed I became with the disc job. There were wide areas where the grass was still firmly rooted in the ground. No amount of raking would get it up. It needed tilling, dad-gummit.
I walked down Pop-Pop's driveway and took the tarp off the tiller. Miraculously, the thing cranked after a dozen or so pulls. I put it in forward gear and slowly followed it up the driveway to the greens plot. When I lined the tiller up for the first row and engaged the tines, I began to feel hopeful that this would go well. The disc had broken the ground enough that the tiller could grab hold. It pulverized the dirt on the first pass. At the end of the row, I wrestled it around and aimed it for the second pass. That's when I noticed that the left tire wasn't spinning. I thought that perhaps the tire wasn't catching because the ground was unlevel, and I bore down on that side of the tiller. Then I noticed that the wheel was turning, but the tire wasn't. About this time, the tire came loose from the rim.
I said a nasty word or two, then started the torturous trip back to Pop-Pop's with the tiller, with the tire half-off the rim. "The valve stem is gone," Pop-Pop said when he saw it. After some pulling and oiling and hammering, he and I managed to get the wheel off the tiller. We'd hoped the valve stem was inside the tire. It wasn't.
I said another nasty word or two. "What do I need to do?" I asked him.
"Get a new valve stem," he said.
I called The Husband, who was out running errands, and asked him to bring home a valve stem. "Smaller than a car, Pop-Pop says, but bigger than a bike. Get one of everything they have in between those two sizes, and maybe one of them will fit."
Even though I hear him driving up now, we probably won't get the blasted thing fixed before it's too dark to finish tilling.
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