Breaking up is hard to do....

Gardening wouldn't be such a b*tch if I could get people and equipment to obey me, instantly, and without debate. 

Every year, I have trouble getting my spring garden plot ready to accept seeds and plants.  It is most often because I depend on other people to break the soil; they get around to it when THEY are ready, which is understandable (I mean, they *are* doing me favors) but unsatisfactory when I am itching to plant and they aren't.

I thought I might have that problem solved last year when I went to a lecture on soil and learned about "no-till gardening," a method that does not require a deep breaking up of the soil, which, theoretically, should have enabled me to plant whenever I choose.  You've heard me sing that no-till blues song ad nauseum;  I will simply remind you that last year's garden was a colossal failure, for a variety of reasons. 

So, this year, it's back to breakin' and plowin', with the added joy of contending with the hay and the newspaper and the landscape fabric left over from last year's no-till fiasco.  My older son graciously offered to do (and did) the break-plowing for me this past Easter Sunday.  The job required about an hour of work just to get the old green tractor running - something about the battery, which is an easy solve IF you have all the right stuff.  I wanted him to disc the garden, too, but the tractor began to leak water from somewhere just as the breaking was finished, and the disking didn't happen.  I am left with rows of basketball-sized clods separated by deep trenches, over which I have sprinkled 120 pounds of lime that needs to be worked into the soil.

Dang it, I am *ready* to plant, even if the garden is not.  Today was an absolutely beautiful day, and I decided to see what my big black tiller could do with the clods and trenches.  It is supposed to rain this weekend, and I thought I might work up a small patch of soil for some spring greens before the rain turns the clods to bricks.  Big Black fired up right away (check!), but it didn't much like those clods, and I had to man-handle it a good bit to keep it going the way I wanted it to go.  All that wrestling wore out my winter-limp muscles really fast.  Finally, I gave the tiller its head and just followed where IT wanted to till, resulting in a pulverized curlique that meanders all over the garden, not the neat rectangle I'd envisioned.  Sooner than I'd hoped, I gave up, cut the engine, and left the tiller where it sat in the garden, for I had brought other power equipment - a riding lawnmower that had muled a heavy gas can down Nanny's long driveway - that I could put to good use.

I had cut up a snake with the tiller in the garden right off the bat (I don't think he was poisonous, and I might have saved him if the reptilian portion of my own brain had not kicked in before the logical portion of my brain could decide not to run over him), so I know that they are out and about.   And Nanny's grass had gotten really tall.  Nanny thinks any snake is a bad snake, and I hated to think about her walking upon one in the tall grass, so I mowed her yard.  In the process, I got too close to a shrub, hooked a limb under the lawnmower fender, and snapped it right off.  Pow!  It went flying into the neighboring bush.  I plucked it out, laid it on the lawnmower deck between my feet, and moved on.

When the mowing was done, I had to get the tiller back to the shop.  I'd left it leaning sideways, astride a big clog and aimed in the wrong direction.  When I finally got it off the clog and aimed the toward the garden shed, I noticed that one of the wheels wasn't turning.  Evidently, I'd twisted the tire loose from the rim as I was trying to turn the tiller out of the trench.  It limped back to the shed, and I got on the lawnmower, settled the gas can on top of the fender between my feet, and headed home.

There was enough daylight left to mow part of my own yard, and since it's going to rain tomorrow, I decided to go ahead and mow the high-traffic part of the yard.  On the second lap, I hit something serious - a big metal rod - in the grass.  I just knew I'd torn up the lawnmower, but it kept on trucking.  As I was about to finish the back yard, the lawnmower ran out of gas.  I still had the gas can between my feet, so I hopped off the mower and filled up the tank.  The lawnmower only grunted when I got back on and tried the key.  After about 50 grunts, with the battery beginning to sound tired, I got off the mower, shot it the bird, and came in the house, disgusted.  About 2 minutes later, The Husband went out there, twisted the key, and the thing fired right up.

I didn't shoot it the bird again, but I wanted to.

And I still don't have the garden tilled.

But as I was mowing, I could see Uncle B up the road on his tractor, mowing the part of his yard where he plants his garden.  If my guess is correct, he will soon be swapping the mower for a disc, and when he does, I'm going to beg or bribe (or both) him to do mine, too.