Gardening is (not) for Sissies

7:56 PM

MommyTasker

What to do with a Saturday that for the first time in weeks only includes:

1. Son's gynmastics class
2. Daughter's soccer game
3. Daughter's Halloween hip-hop performance (x2)
4. Husband's touch rugby game
5. One short section of a proposal to be written
6. Mommy's rest day in anticipation of Sunday's half-marathon?

Well, obviously you get a bee in your bonnet and decide to spend four+ hours turning rock-hard, bare-dirt, unused space next your front yard driveway into native plant garden and because that alone would not be sufficient, you also start preparing backyard garden for winter veggie garden. Because, of course, reading a book or watching a movie would have been too obvious a choice for a rest day.

So as documented below, if you want to blow your rest day with a massive do-it-yourself home project, here is how to best go about it:

Step one: Pick axe said rock-hard, bare-dirt earth to a depth of 24 inches. Rake turned earth smooth of roots, grass, leaves and other items. Repeat. Strip down to sports bra in front yard because you are sweating. Eventually recruit husband to help (who's grunts of exertion are quite validating to the level of effort you have been expending).

Gardening = Full Body Workout

Step two: Rest weary back with a trip to local garden center for soil amendments, mulch, and plants. Come back fairly disappointed with the blank stare three different employees gave you when you asked where the native and drought-tolerant plants were located. Notice that no vegetable seedlings are for sale either. Buy two plants and resolve to try another nursery.

Step three: Amend front and backyard garden soil with home-brew compost and store-bought soil amendments. Casually notice that flaps of skin have started to peel away from blisters on hands and that your back isn't feeling as fresh as it did this morning. Start planting and mulching. Ignore the fact that you are grinding earth into open sores.

Bare Earth, Beginning to Transform

Step four: Water. Become extremely frustrated with inefficiency of sprinkler system and switch to hand-watering. Notice that this does not feel good on blistered hands either. Recruit child labor.

Raising a Green Thumb

Step five: Admire a job well done.

Small But Lovely

Step six: Collapse exhausted. Oh wait, get up and get ready for last minute race packet pick up and Halloween event.

Tinkerbell and Peter Pan at Race Packet Pickup

Step seven: Run half-marathon race. Surprise everybody, most of all yourself, by running a PR. Spent rest of day playing with kids, resting and planting winter garden of peas, kale, broccoli, and lettuce in backyard.