Gardening at Night

Last night Katrina and I went to work in our garden. I soon realized we had more than enough space in our double plot so invited Kat to come utilize the space - and offer up some of her advice, gardening knowhow, and capable hands. I'd neglected to factor in the time commitment when planning this garden, and am finding it very difficult to get in there and do the work that needs to be done with Buggy; tilling and weeding with a baby on the back is both tiresome and trying for her, so I don't do it. But now with Kat on board I'm finding the motivation and partnership I needed all along to get this piece of land whipped into food-bearing shape! She and I headed up there last night at dusk and worked until our eyes, adjusted to the dim light at 9 o'clock, could no longer make out the task at hand. The beauty of the situation - aside from the always-pleasant companionship and the joy of working in the ground - was that, at long last, I was living the 1982 classic R.E.M. number, "Gardening at Night". Such a fantastic song that always conjured up images of a bent-backed, green-thumbed old Georgian codger fumbling about in the overgrowth. Listen up, y'all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6uSU_TQBmE

Despite the fact that we logged only an hour or so of labor, we were impressed by the ground our two sets of hands covered. Our plan was to lay down sheets of cardboard to stifle weed growth, then lay down layers of compost and leaf mulch, but when we arrived we found that the combination of plentiful rain followed by a few days of sunlight had created a jungle of tall grasses and weeds, so we tilled and pulled up about a sixth of the plot. We will return on Wednesday evening for more of the same, then maybe one more session of maintenance until we can prepare the ground for our seeds. It's going to be one glorious garden, to be sure!