Monday, November 1, 2010

My Garden Wants to Kill Me

The biggest problem in the garden? The garden is a patch of about half an acre in the middle of a fenced acre of thick native thatch populated by the most hostile, pain-inducing stickers. The stickers are broken up by occasional cacti, fire ant mounds and needle-thorned mesquite.  Even when I was working on it regularly, stickers were a constant battle.  I had to wear heavy boots, gloves, and layers of denim.  I did my best to mow around the cultivated patch and create a kind of demilitarized zone, but the incursions from hostile plant life were frequent and unrelenting.

Now after six months of neglect, the garden has returned to its natural state of hostility to human flesh.  My puny little mower stalls out every few feet.  And with the children now, I don't have long stretches of time to devote to two-feet-at-a-time mowing. What's more, I can't take the kids with me to the garden because there are two many things out there that want to pierce tender young hides.

So what to do?  Do I buy a more powerful mower?  Hire someone with a tractor to plow the whole acre under and plant more flesh-friendly ground cover?  Give the project up as a folly?  I'm open to ideas.

2 comments:

  1. Cover it with black plastic! Glad to see your posting. Kids sure can sway a perspective, eh, lol! Peace

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  2. I would go for hiring someone to plow over with a tractor, or buy a more powerful mower - a lesson I learned with an easier task at hand than your patch. My motto: more ease and recognizing limitations i.e. when to get support and bigger, better tools!!!

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