Gardening: One Heckuva Chore!

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Last weekend (May 14th to be exact), I was determined to finally plant the 2 shasta daisy pots that I bought a week before from Briarbrook Nursery in East Greenwich, RI. So, when I woke up at 7:30 Saturday morning, I headed out of the house to get the tools and gloves. Little did I know what I was getting myself into.

Starting at 8AM, I began pulling up the weeds in the E-shaped bed along the right side of the house, and shoveling out the dead leaves that filled up the basement window clearance gaps over the past year. Except for disturbing the bumblebee nest, I was okay. However the worst was yet to come.

Satisfied with clearing out the weeds and leaves, I took my shovel to lift out the dirt for the first shasta plant. The ground refused to budge. I then knelt down and tried my spade, but still nothing would give. Turns out that the maple tree which provided those leaves in the window pits also allowed its root system to invade the entire flower bed. To get to the point, instead of happily planting 2 shasta plants in my estimated 3 hours, I could only get one in because it took 3 hours to get the root system out of a 2ft by 3ft part of the bed! Never thought gardening could be so difficult.

A couple of days later when the soil had dried out from the Sunday and Monday rain, I woke up a little after 5AM with the early morning sun. Inspired on what I was able to accomplish on Saturday, and remembering that a neighbor worked on her yard as her morning exercise, I decided to attack the flower bed in the front yard.
Again I had no idea what I was in for… This time I ended up weeding only one-third of the bed in 2 hours time! I need to learn how to gauge my gardening minutes. That or realize how slow/fast I truly work. 🙂

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