Dig, Dig, Dig, Dig, Dig the Whole Day Through

It's a backwards spring. While March was warm, April has been cool, even cold (it was snowing on the hills above us today!) But we finally got a bit of rain over the last two days, which we sorely needed. Hopefully it will rain again tonight, as we have had heavily overcast skies all day.

Finally realizing that there was no way I had the strength to get my garden beds ready myself I hired a kind and willing neighbour who spent little more than half an hour doing what would have taken me a week, and left me sick to boot. I forget what it is to have strength. Then I see someone almost effortlessly do a job in a fraction of the time it would have taken me. It's hard not to be envious.

Bill, the willing neighbour, turned over the soil in my two 4 x 4 raised beds and my three foot across kiddie pool planter, adding compost, peat moss and composted "moo poo" to each. He moved the kiddie pool into a more sunny position in the community garden. He dug out the compost bin and filled a large container with finished compost so I can get to it easily, and he dug in a bag of dry leaves and got the compost bin off to a good spring start.

He laid plywood between the top level of my garden tiers in the back, creating a shelf. He placed the large container that had been on the ground on the new "shelf" where the plants will get more sun and air.

From the garden beds he took soil to fill a dozen pots, loaded them into the wheelbarrow and brought them to the front, where they can be planted with a mix of flowers and vegies. This is my neighbour Randy's area, but he said he was happy to let me use it, as he had no plans to garden there.

And all this in about 30-40 minutes. I couldn't believe it. I can plant my cool weather crops now. I just have to decide where to plant everything.