A Word About Soil Cultivation

This blog has been totally neglected these past few months because I've been outdoors attempting to revitalize my garden. The soil is hard clay - a shovel can't pierce it. I've had to use a pick, and sometimes only the pointy end will penetrate.



It's exhausting hard work. I can only do a few hours at a time. Even hired help only scratched the surface (so to speak). I am so dirty afterward that I close the garage door and remove my soil-caked jeans in the garage before I go inside!

It is a kind of treasure hunt though. Besides the pile of roots (below) I've also found buried junk - mostly bottles and a crushed tin can (maybe from the construction site?) and even bits of newsprint with the script still legible.

Except for being so exhausting, it's actually fun in a primal kind of way. Crumbling crusted earth into manageable bits is just a terrific sensation!



And here is the result - a level, (mostly) root free, compost-enriched bed ready for planting. This represents some 25 hours of hard labor.