A nice weekend, with lovely weather. We did make it to the book sale — no spectacular finds; I was hoping for some good Catholic books but the Religion table was pretty picked over — not much left but stacks of Thomas “Care of the Soul” Moore and Sarah ban Breathnach books.
More digging in the garden. We finished the third bed and are halfway done with the fourth. It’s taking a long time because I am double-digging the beds — shoveling off the first 12 inches of topsoil, loosening the subsoil, replacing the topsoil, and raking in amendments. The premise behind double-digging is that it gets plenty of nutrients into the soil and improves the drainage. It seems to be working — we got two inches of rain last week with no puddles in the garden beds. It’s also hard work — taking off 16 cubic feet of soil takes a while. Our soil is pretty poor — the first two inches are okay, but then the heavy red clay starts, and then about a foot down is an incredibly hard layer of grey clay. I tried using a spade and then a fork to break up that layer; eventually I resorted to a small axe-like thing we found in our shed (I think it’s called a mattock.)
While I’ve been doing all this digging, I’ve been turning up huge rocks, some the size of small melons. We had quite a rock pile built up on the patio, all rocks we’d pried up from the garden. We finally met our next-dorr neighbors this afternoon — my husband was talking with them in the front and somehow the topic of rocks came up. They got all excited because they use those rocks in their landscaping. So our rocks found a new home and, three wheelbarrow loads later, everyone was happy.
More reflections on gardens tomorrow. Meanwhile, I am pleased to report that it looks like the rhubarb I planted last Saturday is starting to thrive — two of the roots are beginning to show leaves, and the other two look like they’re sending up new growth as well. Alas, not much progress to report on the lettuce, and none on the carrots….