25%

With a little more practice, a slightly lower standard of perfection, and some truly valuable help from a certain 6-year-old, I spent 4 hours prepping another 20% of the backyard garden. That's TWICE as fast as my first go 'round. Now 25% done!

Karen asked about a rototiller. Wouldn't that make this a lot easier?

Yes. Sort of.

I'm following the biointensive method this year, which requires a lot of time and energy to build the soil structure in a very specific way. Healthy soil leads to healthy plants which better resist insect/disease problems and produce higher yields. I need to aerate and mix the top 12 inches of soil and loosen the 12 inches of hard-packed clay soil underneath that. A tiller would probably help. Most tillers I've seen aerate and mix about 6-8 inches of soil. If I could find one strong enough to cut through hard-packed clay soil, then it would just be a matter of going over the bed, removing the loosened soil, going over it again, removing the loosened soil, going over it one more time, and spreading all the loosened soil back on top. It could cut my bed prep time, I think. Maybe. Hm.

The boys buzzed around me now and then while I worked. At one point, James found a dandelion that I had unearthed. The roots were long and the leaves were fine and bushy. He decided it was a broom and he started to sweep dust from the garden bed saying, "Let's pretend we don't have any money and we have to make all our own stuff that we need."

Robert, helping me by breaking up huge dirt clods, said, "No, we're working hard to earn money. Someone is paying us to work in their garden."

James lit up (this boy LOVES money, almost as much as he loves the mail), sweeping more vigorously, "Yah! They're paying us a hundred million dollars!"

"No, no. Not that much. They're paying us only 5 or 10 dollars."

"No way," I said, "No one would do all this for only 5 bucks."

Well, actually, Robert's 3 hours of diligent, truly helpful efforts earned him a whopping $6.50.

My body hurts. I'm tired. I need a shower. But I/we made GOOD progress on the garden bed today and that's something I'm really proud of.

Alice says, "Hey Mom! This girl kinda reminds me of you. Not her hairdo, y'know, but her face." Gee. Thanks.