Digging up Grassroots: Us versus the Sod

Today Channing and I started our first garden together. Of course it's not something we did on a whim. Weeks of discussion, planning, and reluctance to ask the landlord's permission went into it. Channing finally asked yesterday, and this morning we got our very own roto-tiller. Well, thanks to my parents who bought it for my birthday.

After one trip to the hardware store last night (including the purchase of a shovel, hoe, rake, and mattic), lots of internet research and phone calls to everyone we know with gardens, we went to Atwoods this morning and purchased a Southland Roto-tiller, which luckily came fully assembled.

So, we started with a field of grass and ended up with a 50 ft. x 30 ft. plot of dirt. Sounds easy, right? Absolutely not, in no way at all was that an easy endeavor. In fact, it took most of our day and all of our energy. We took turns using the roto-tiller. I went first and lasted all of four minutes trying to control it over thick, fresh grass with intricate root systems. While Channing managed to get to the end of the first row before realizing that two of the blades were on backward, thus inhibiting the tillers ability to till dirt, I pulled pieces of grass, roots, and thick layers of sod up with the rake.

After Channing fixed the blades, the tiller was much more effective and easier to use, so I took my fair turn using it until we had made it through the first time. Then, we started raking up the grass into piles at each end. It was then we realized how useful a wheelbarrow would be, so Channing left to pick one up while I finished raking the grass out of our garden plot.

The smell of fresh dirt reminded me of all the times I used to follow Dad while he tilled up the garden when I was little. Our dog, Gooden, would follow behind me eating grub worms from the loose dirt while I jumped from one of Dad's footprints into another. As I grew up, I only helped with the parts of gardening I considered fun - picking tomatoes, eating strawberries, shucking corn - only sometimes did I hoe out the weeds or pluck potato bugs off of leaves. Now, I'm all grown up and this garden belongs to me and my husband. That means I have to rake the grass out of the dirt, untangle its roots, till up the dirt, hoe out the rows, set the plants . . . but it is the two of us and we can do it; the fun parts and the work are all ours.

When Channing got back with the wheelbarrow, we took a short break for lunch, eating avocado and cheese sandwiches and fruit salad on the front porch. Then, we went right back at it. I picked up the grass piles and dumped them in a corner of our yard for compost and Channing continued to tiller. After a while, I took a turn at it. We took our turns until we had plowed up the garden in alternating directions, ending with the way we wanted our rows.

Now all we have to do is plant stuff . . . (and fight weeds, drought, and pests) . . .