While it’s still too early and muddy to do much out in the garden just yet, I did spend yesterday down at the new community garden plot with Virginia.

Last year’s attempt at maintaining a plot down there faced every possible frustration you could think of – flooding, poor soil, critters that laughed at our every attempt to contain them.  We thought about throwing in the towel, but then Virginia asked one day in late January if I’d give it another go if we got a different plot, so I said why not?  At the very least, it’s a good excuse to have a regular activity to do with Virginia. I find that as the path of my every day life shifts, who is on that path shifts as well – so I often find myself looking for reasons to do things with girlfriends who used to be an effortless part of my life on a daily basis. For instance, Virginia.  When our kids were younger, we spent time at the park together almost daily, for years.  Now that our kids are teenagers (and college age!), we don’t have that built in regular visit. It’s sort of funny how much of our lives revolve around our children, despite our best attempts, isn’t it?

So, the new plot.  I took more than two photos but a slew of them are totally overexposed for reasons I have yet to figure out. So, we just have those two before shots. You can see where the fence was knocked down – not so much knocked down, as it was clearly backed up into or driven over.  The dirt seems to be in much better shape than our old plot (meaning, it’s not all clay!) and it’s uphill from where we were, so it should drain.  Also, the soil not being all clay should help with the drainage. The plots adjacent to ours look maintained, which should be helpful with both weed management and critter control.  The gate is much sturdier – I did not have to rebuild it like I did last year.

We spent a few hours clearing what was there – it’s really amazing the difference a simple rake can make.  I ripped out the old, broken fence and we installed some new fencing. When Pat and Edie popped by for a visit, Pat pointed out evidence of poison ivy, which I had chopped back – I went back and ripped it out by the root.  I remembered to wear gloves AND long sleeves AND long pants while working out there and twenty four hours later, I do not appear to have any signs of poison ivy.  This might be a first for me.  I’m 45 years old and finally learning how to NOT get poison ivy.  I am so proud of myself.

We have more prep work to do – both Virginia and I commented on how wiped out we were from yesterday afternoon, but it felt great to be out in the sun, clearing our new garden spot.  We hope to get some greens planted down there in the next few weeks.  Both our families came down to visit while we were out there working yesterday, with our kids both saying they think the new plot is bigger – I agree. Now to figure out what to plant down there…