{"id":2225,"date":"2007-02-26T15:38:40","date_gmt":"2007-02-26T20:38:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.168.1.5\/gardens\/gardenlog\/?p=2225"},"modified":"2017-07-18T18:39:03","modified_gmt":"2017-07-18T23:39:03","slug":"gardening-is-work-hard-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/garden-essays\/gardening-is-work-hard-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Gardening is Work–Hard Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just came in to take a break from my gardening break. My indoor breaks usually involve a little surfing and over at Garden Rant<\/a> a couple of entries lately have lamented the news that some Americans don’t garden because it’s work. Eeew! And dirty.<\/p>\n

The 2 cents from some commenters is that gardens don’t have to be hard work. I don’t know what paradise they garden in but, honey, in Austin, Texas gardening is hard work. Hard, back-breaking work.<\/p>\n

The twinge in my lower back today comes from turning the compost pile and moving half a dozen wheelbarrow loads of compost into the winter rose bed. I still haven’t finished last week’s project of putting Dillo Dirt around my large bushes and small trees even though AJM made it easier for me by helping me move a 22-liter bag next to each of the plants I wanted to fertilize. I thought that would take a day….so that chore is in overtime.<\/p>\n

Let’s not forget th. 32 bags of Christmas tree mulch<\/a> that I hauled from Zilker Park and spread over all my paths. And the still-to-be-blogged-about-when-it’s-finished front path project which involved me moving 3 tons of gravel<\/a> a bit at a time because trying to put it in a wheelbarrow resulted in the wheelbarrow being too heavy to move. That damn project required all the levelling of the paths beforehand and laying down horticultural cloth so that the paths retained their shape and bindweed didn’t sprout through.<\/p>\n

Speaking of chores I hate: pulling up bindweed and poison ivy and cutting back smilax and nandina; chopping out hackberry and chinaberry sproutlings.<\/p>\n

Digging holes<\/a> for new plants is also always a day-long struggle involving prizing out rocks and cutting out tree roots.<\/p>\n

Then there’s just the normal boring stuff…not hard work but tedious, mindless stuff. I’m still cleaning up red oak leaves from all the beds and paths, hacking back English ivy, cutting back perennials, trying to get the trees pruned before they break dormancy, and watering. And then there’s always weeding.<\/p>\n

All those chores take a back seat to the stuff I enjoy doing: transplanting seedlings and dividing bulbs and playing in the dirt. Fear of Soil<\/a>? I’m not stricken with that phobia. I love gardening precisely because I like having my hands in the dirt. I never wear gloves. I get a thrill in squashing grubs with my bare hands. I love the feel and smell of rich, moist earth. Any veggies or flowers that result from my messing around in the dirt are a bonus. That’s why my garden is not a hot tour spot. It’s more for feeling than for looking at. You have to get down on your knees to appreciate it properly.<\/p>\n

Do I ever just sit in the garden? enjoy a cup of tea? read a book? Nope. We bought a hammock years ago and an Adirondack chair. But I can’t sit down a second without seeing something that needs to be done.<\/p>\n

I enjoy being in the garden, but relaxing it ain’t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Relax in the garden? Who has time for that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5415,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225\/revisions\/5415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}