Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The garden out front?

I had a go at the garden out front today.  It needed it.  I had a big whack at it just as we got back, and it was still a disaster, my how things GROW while you're away.

A friend lent me a hoe to do the dirty deed, and it was amazingly efficient, though I do have to say that at the moment the poor thing looks like a convention of moles went on some kind of vodka fed orgy and they left nothing but the tattered remains behind.  Good grief, but there is more to do.

No photos yet, but next on my agenda is some mulch, I can watch the poor thing drying up.  First I want to level it out though, now that it is all nicely stirred, it has all sorts of weird hillocks and divots.

No photos yet, though I do have a before, I was too tired for the after.  Hoe's were designed to do as much damage to the human anatomy as possible.  Any tool that requires you to work standing with your torso parallel with the ground for hours at a time was designed by someone evil.

There has to be a better way.

I do have to say that it worked like a charm though, and having never really used one before I am fairly certain that my technique left a little to be desired.

I did keep having images in my mind of early settlers heading out to the fields with a hoe on their shoulders and wild grass as far as the eye could see....and slaves in cotton fields.....and I was very glad that my garden is small, my ambitions smaller and I can quit whenever I want.

3 comments:

Beth said...

It seems to me all gardening chores – and the equipment required – do not accommodate the human body. At least not mine!

Helen said...

Mechanical diggers are a wonderful invention. It is the way you have to hoe/rake/dig/weed at the worst possible angle for the human back that gets me.

oreneta said...

Beth, true in many ways, though I find some carpentry/metal working tools worse, they all assume that we have giant powerful man-paws and, though my hands are fairly large, I can barely get some of the tools to functions. I recall some hefty frustration with a staple gun one long afternoon, though they apparently make one shaped like a hammer, I love the thought of using one of THOSE babies.

Helen, that's it exactly, the worst possible angle for the human back. Who invented those things and why haven't they been improved. There must be a reason, but I don't have the experience to figure it out. Maybe it is to keep the baby strapped to our back on board, if we were standing up more the poor thing would have trouble sleeping.